Pastor Tommy is the senior pastor of Cross Community Church (PCA) in Deerfield Beach, FL. Rev. Tommy Boland is his official title. Pastor Tommy often seems too formal. Most everyone calls him "Coach".
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)
If we read the Bible as if it is a book of disconnected stories teaching moralistic and ethical messages on how to have our best life now, we have a tendency to think it’s all about us. We look at the heroes of the Bible and think that God used these men and women because of their greatness. But when we recognize that the Bible is a single story about God’s unfolding plan of redemption that finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, we look at the heroes of the Bible and understand that what made these men and women great was nothing other than the fact that God graciously choose to use them.
Who is the person that God chooses to use as an instrument of salvation and sanctification in His mighty right hand? It is the card-carrying “Triple-A member,” one who is –
AWED by the glory of God
AVAILABLE to the Spirit of God
ACTING on the Word of God
God is in the business of taking common people and making them uncommon . . . taking weak people and making them strong . . . taking foolish people and making them wise . . . taking average people and making them great. In God’s economy, it is not those with great ability whom God calls into His service; rather, it is those who are awed by His glory, available to His Spirit, and acting on His Word, regardless of the cost or circumstance. Does this “Triple A” describe you today? Is this the confession of your life right now?
When we are awed by the glory of God, we know what Paul knew: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!” (Romans 11:33 ESV). When we are awed by the glory of God, we become available to the Spirit of God, who makes us willing to follow God wherever He leads us. This, of course, leads us to live lives acting on the Word of God.
When we rightly read the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, we realize that God did not call great men and women into His service to expand His Kingdom. Rather, those ordinary men and woman — people like you and me, broken and marred by sin — were made great by God’s calling on their lives, simply because they were available to be used and acted on the words He had spoken to them. This is the person God uses.
How is with you today? Are you ready to go fishing . . . for people?
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (Acts 20:24)
“My life is not my own!” Without a doubt, this was my mom’s favorite saying when I was growing up, and it had two distinct and different levels of truth that she was expressing. First, she would say it — sometimes in a tone of exasperation — in the context of the demands of raising five children while running the household. But there was a far deeper message Mom was teaching us, because she loved Jesus and she knew her life was not her own. Rather, her life was the Lord’s to use as He pleased.
One of the best descriptions of this biblical truth comes from the Heidelberg Catechism, which was written in 1563. The questions and answers are organized in 52 Lord’s Days; they were originally intended to be taught on each Sunday of the year.
Lord’s Day 1
Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A: That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil, He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
My mom knew that there was no greater comfort in life and death than to know that her life was not her own. She knew that she had been purchased by Jesus at the cost of His precious blood, shed on the cross for the forgiveness of her sins – all of her sins. She also knew that her Lord and Savior was in complete control of everything in the universe, which included everything in her life. My mom knew that no matter what was happening, Jesus was in control of every bit of it and was all working all of it together for her ultimate good. My mom loved us best by loving Jesus and living for His glory alone.
Are you living that way? Am I?
Regardless of where this message finds you today, let me encourage you to adopt my mom’s favorite saying and make it your own. Freely confess that “My life is not my own” and know the freedom and joy of living wholeheartedly for the glory of God and the good of others. This is a life that truly testifies to the Good News of God’s grace — not just daily, but moment by moment.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. (John 14:27)
When the chaos in the world around us is heaviest, the light of Christ is the brightest, if we will but look in His direction. Think about the chaos at the wedding reception that took place at Cana in Galilee when they ran out of wine. In the ancient world, wedding receptions were week-long events; often the entire town was invited to attend to celebrate the couple’s new life together. To run out of wine at such an event was not only an embarrassment, it was an offense to the unwritten rules of hospitality. Imagine the chaotic concern that was beginning to spread. “They have no more wine!” However, Jesus and His disciples were invited guests, and when His mother went to Jesus for help. Then the light of Christ shone brightly as He turned mere water into wine — and not just wine, but the best wine they had ever tasted (John 2:1-10).
Think about the chaos on the hillside where Jesus fed the 5,000. (And because only men were counted in those days, it is estimated that as many as 10,000 to 20,000 people were actually fed.) The disciples went to Jesus, saying that it was late, the people were hungry, so Jesus should send them away to go buy food. There was simply no way to feed so many people! Then the light of Christ shone brightly as He multiplied the five loaves and two fish to feed the massive crowd — and there were still leftovers after every man, woman, and child had eaten their fill (Matthew 14:15-21). Truly He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine! (Ephesians 3:20).
Think about the chaos in the region of the Gerasenes, when a man with an evil spirit came running from the tombs to Jesus, a man whom no one could restrain even with a chain. Night and day this demon-possessed man would cry out among the tombs and cut himself with stones. Then the light of Christ shone brightly as He cured the man and cast the legion of demons out of the man and into a nearby herd of pigs, who immediately ran over the cliff and drowned in the lake below. And the man who was being destroyed by Satan became an evangelist, traveling throughout a ten-city region and telling people all that the Lord had done for him (Mark 5:2-20).
What kind of chaotic circumstances are you facing today? Are the waves of challenge crashing over you? Are you caught up in the chaotic pace of everyday living in a culture that conditions us to emulate the Energizer Bunny and just keep going and going and going? Never forget that Christ is in every circumstance and available to carry your chaos . . . IF you will invite Him.
No life was filled with more chaos than the life of Jesus. The multitudes came to see Him and pressed in around Him, straining to hear Him, touch Him, follow Him, and be healed by Him . . . and also to ridicule Him, mock Him, trap Him, and condemn Him. And how did Jesus deal with the chaos that swirled around Him?
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Mark 1:35)
Jesus gave us the key to rising above the chaos of life and remaining calm: time alone with God. You see, the chaos in the life of Christ was ongoing. When the disciples found Jesus they said, “Everyone is looking for you!” This was no surprise to Jesus. Yet Jesus knew He needed to withdraw from the chaos to connect with His Father in heaven. This is the key to conquering the chaos in our own lives. We need to withdraw into the presence of Christ, especially in the midst of our chaotic circumstances, and He will give us the peace that passes all human understanding. You have His Word on that!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
When I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)
The title of today’s word of encouragement may seem a bit strange. When it comes to our limitations and weaknesses, we tend to do everything in our power to minimize or eliminate them . . . or at least cover them up. To be sure, God’s gifts of wisdom and strength are viewed as assets, and these are the areas in life we work to increase and improve. But Paul taught that God gives both strengths and weaknesses, and they are to be stewarded and used for His glory and the good of others.
Today’s verse comes from the “thorn” passage (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Paul pleaded with the Lord three times to take away his “thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan” that was tormenting him, and three times God refused. “My grace is sufficient for you,” God told Paul, “for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God dispenses both strengths and weaknesses to His disciples, and we must learn how to lean into both in order to maximize our service to our Lord.
Understand that Paul was not using the word “weakness” as a euphemism for “sin” in the way that our present-day culture substitutes syrupy phrases, such as “having an affair” for “committing adultery,” to paper over the offense of sin. In his letter to the Romans, Paul rebuked those who were boasting that their sin displayed the grace of God to an even greater degree (Romans 6:1-2). In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul freely confessed that “I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:3). Paul certainly was not saying that he had come to the Corinthians in sin; no he was candidly admitting that he felt dramatically underqualified — that is, weak — in his role as a teacher and an evangelist.
The best way I know how to explain the difference between weakness and sin is this: Our weakness is given by God to cause us to turn toward Him and to depend on Him more; our sin turns us away from God as we depend more on ourselves. When we lean into our weaknesses, God’s power is put on display for all the world to see as we trust more in what God can do for us than what we can do for ourselves. Indeed, Paul said that “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4-5).
Paul saw his “thorn” — his weakness — as a liability to His ministry at first, and he pleaded with God to remove it. But in time, he came to realize that God was using both Paul’s strengths and his weaknesses to advance the cause of the Kingdom of God. Now, if you are anything like me, learning to see weakness as a gift from God does not happen as quickly as it did for Paul. He asked “three times” for God to take it away; I sometimes still ask God to take my weaknesses away. But over time, I am slowly learning how to trust and depend more and more on God, and less and less on me.
When was the last time you considered leaning into your limitations for God’s glory and your good? That’s right; I said “for your good.” Paul said he was given his weakness to keep him humble, and that is one of the great blessings of our limitations. The more we lean into our limitations, the more God humbles us, and the more God humbles us, the more we are like our Lord Jesus, who made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant (Philippians 2:7).
When Paul said, “It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful,” (1 Corinthians 4:2), he was not confining the word “trust” to our strengths. He meant everything God has given to us: our strengths and our weaknesses too. May the confession of our lives demonstrate our utter dependence upon God as we lean into our limitations.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I will pour out my Spirit on all people – your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. (Joel 2:28)
The Scriptures are filled with accounts of both men and women who dreamed dreams and saw visions and brought them to life because of their faith in God. One of the best examples is Nehemiah. When he heard about the condition of the walls around Jerusalem, he began praying, thinking, planning, dreaming, and creating a vision of victory. But he did not leave it there. He acted on it in the strength of the Almighty. He obtained permission to return to Jerusalem, organized a task force, and stayed focused when facing criticism, distractions, and opposition. And in 52 days, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt to the glory of God and the good of His people.
What has the Lord laid on your heart these days? What is Jesus calling you to do to expand the cause of His Kingdom? Know this: God never gives a dream or a vision to someone without giving them every resource needed to make it come to life. God is not in the business of calling the equipped; rather, God equips the called. God will give you everything you need to do everything He is calling you to do.
If you feel unequipped or inadequate for something you know God is calling you to do, fear not! Moses felt utterly inadequate and gave God every excuse in the book to try to get out of his calling to deliver God’s people out of bondage in Egypt. When all else failed, Moses was finally reduced to pleading, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it” (Exodus 4:13). But God gave Moses everything he needed and used him to set God’s people free from the most powerful nation in the world at that time.
It’s not likely that God is calling you to confront some powerful world leader to expand the cause of His Kingdom. But He may very well be calling you to volunteer to help out in Sunday school or some other ministry at your church. Perhaps He is calling you to start a new ministry and you are feeling unequipped or inadequate. Remember, God loves taking ordinary people like you and me and equipping us to do the extraordinary for His glory and the good of others. We simply need to move from dreaming dreams to doing them, leaving the results in faith up to the One who gave us the dream.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. (Ephesians 4:14)
Because God’s greatest goal for us is to conform us to the image and likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are to live out the importance of growing up, not just growing old. Think about it this way: I can’t imagine anyone saying they want to be the same person today that they were a year ago. Those who are not committed to growing in their faith are mired in perpetual spiritual infancy.
Spiritual growth is not automatic after Jesus raises us from death to life. Spiritual growth requires that we desire to grow, decide to grow, do the work to grow, and persist in growing. This growth, of course, is a life-long process that will not be completed until we are brought into glory. And while our growth is all of grace, it will not be completed without our commitment.
We all know about commitment. We are all committed to something or some things. The question is, Are we committed to growing and maturing in our Christian faith? Identifying our commitments will make the answer crystal clear. Here are a few things to consider: Your prayer life . . . Your thought life . . . Your Bible reading plan . . . Your weekly church attendance . . . Your generosity . . . Your service to the expansion of the Kingdom of Christ.
To grow up and become more like Jesus, we must deeply desire to develop the mind of Jesus. We have to think His thoughts — we must take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5) — and one of the best ways to begin doing is to follow this instruction from the apostle Paul:
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things (Philippians 4:8).
We must be very intentional about what we are putting into our minds. We must be careful to fill our minds with the wisdom of God’s Word, not the wisdom of this world. We must focus on “the truth that is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21), not our feelings. At this level of living, we can be certain that we will not only be growing older, but we will also be growing up into maturity.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of are doing, but let us encourage one another. (Hebrews 10:25)
Once we understand that we have been saved to be part of a family of faith, we must answer this question: How do we cultivate community? The answer is, “Frequently!” In order to grow relationships within our family of faith, we must frequently make meaningful contact in genuine fellowship. Growing any relationship takes time, which is why our verse for today exhorts us to keep coming together.
Here is something we must keep in view if we are serious about building community. Community is not built on convenience, but rather on commitment and conviction. We can’t just come together when we feel like it, because, truth be told, most often we simply don’t feel like it! We must be intentional and purposeful about setting aside time out of our busy schedules because it is vitally important for us to continue growing in community. Solitary saints are the number one target of the evil one. Just like a hungry lion patiently circling a herd of zebras, Satan is always prowling around God’s people, looking to pounce on those who have wandered away from community and devour them. This is much harder for him to do when we intentionally immerse ourselves in a great cloud of witnesses.
One of the keys that unlocks the door to building community is forsaking the self and focusing on our Savior, who died to give us a relationship with Him and with all those who are His. We must be willing to jettison . . .
Self-absorption
Self-centeredness
Self-rule
Remember this: We are going to be together forever with our family of faith in the new heavens and the new earth, so the more time we spend with them here and now, the better we will be prepared for the there and then. The church as a whole is far more important than any individual. As my friend Steve Brown likes to say, “All those who belong to Jesus belong to all those who belong to Jesus.” May that truth set us free and inspire us to cultivate community.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! (Romans 3:3-4)
The more time we spend in the Word of God, the more familiar we become with His promises. The evil one likes to sow seeds of doubt in our minds — particularly when we are messing things up — to cause us to shrink back from the life God is calling us to live and pressing into God’s promises. But today’s passage makes one thing perfectly clear: Nothing we do can nullify any of the thousands of promises God has made to His people. I’d like to encourage you with just a few of those promises today, promises taken from both the Old and New Testaments:
God has promised . . .
To be near us when we pray – Deuteronomy 4:7 To be with us wherever we go – Joshua 1:9 To be our peace – Judges 6:24 To turn our darkness into light – 2 Samuel 22:29 To fill our dry valleys with water – 2 Kings 3:16 To direct our steps – Proverbs 3:6 To bind up our wounds – Hosea 6:1 To be our refuge in times of trouble – Nahum 1:7 To make us fishers of men – Matthew 4:19 To give us rest – Matthew 11:28 To give us the Holy Spirit – John 14:16 To come back and take us to be with Him – John 14:3
Remember, what God has promised, God will do. He has assured us that “What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do” (Isaiah 46:11). God is the consistent keeper of His promises. He has never broken a promise in the past, and He is not about to start now. That is because He does not change (Malachi 3:6). He does not lie, and He does not change His mind (Numbers 23:19).
Look to the promises of God. Rest in them, trust in them, and let them propel you into the perfect plan and purpose He has for your imperfect life.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. (Psalm 145:9)
Our God is in the blessing business, and let me assure you that He wants to do much more than bless your food. Yet for far too many brothers and sisters in our family of faith, that is as far as they go when it comes to seeking the blessings of God. We serve a big God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, and we ought to be looking to Him each day for big blessings!
You see, God wants us to come to Him with open minds, open hearts, and open hands, ready to receive all that He has in store for us. God wants us to trust more, seek more, believe more, wait more, expect more, pray more, and depend more. God wants us to pour out our lives out in service to Him for His glory and the good of all others. As we engage in advancing the cause of His big Kingdom (rather than our own little kingdom), God will bless our efforts beyond our wildest imaginations!
Perhaps you are facing a challenge right now that seems impossible to overcome. It will serve you well to remember that with God nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37). Hudson Taylor, who spent more than 50 years working as a missionary to China, said this about God doing the impossible in our lives: “There are three stages to every great work of God; first it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.” Remember, even when circumstances argue against all hope, we are still to have hope. Because Jesus is our Living Hope, we have a hope that nothing in this world can affect.
What would you like God to bless in your life right now? Come into His Presence and share what is on your heart and prepare to be blessed. You have our Lord’s Word on that!
“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11)
Jesus told us that we are to always pray and not give up (Luke 18:1). Did He say that so that we would ask and then be frustrated and discouraged when we don’t get the answer we want? That would be cruel, and the God-Man who died for us on a cross is anything but cruel! No, Jesus told us to keep asking, seeking, and knocking so that He could do immeasurably more than all we can ask or even imagine (Ephesians 3:18). Think big, Christian! Pray big!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Matthew 6:26-27)
In this segment of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was teaching about worry, and He made it clear that the reason why we are not to worry is the fact that He has promised to meet our every need. Now, don’t confuse the word worry with concern. To be concerned is to be moved to action through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Worry, on the other hand, keeps you from moving at all. Worry paralyzes any meaningful forward progress.
Jesus pointed to the birds and their lack of any concern whatsoever for their daily needs. Birds neither sow, nor reap, nor store away in barns, yet their every need is met. We are image-bearers of the Most-High God; we are much more valuable to God than the birds; therefore worry makes no sense at all!
Here is a lovely thought that was provided to us by an anonymous author:
Said the robin to the sparrow, “I should really like to know Why these anxious human beings Rush about and worry so.”
Said the sparrow to the robin, “Friend, I think that it must be That they have no heavenly Father Such as cares for you and me.”
Only by pressing in to the presence of our Lord Jesus each day will our lives begin to reflect the attitude of the birds. Worry will be as far as the east is from the west as we look to Jesus, knowing that our God has promised to meet all our needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). And He has always made good on every one of His promises. You have His Word on it!
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:20)
Christian, let the next bird you see be a reminder that God cares for you completely.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 