The Cost of "No" | Ryan Kramer

Well, if you've got your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew chapter 8, and we've been in a series that we've called That's Crazy. Turn to somebody and say, that's crazy. That's crazy. We've been in a summer series called That's Crazy, and we've been looking at the miracles of Jesus in Matthew chapter 8 and Matthew chapter 9, and just exploring these miracles and taking a closer look at how they reveal who Jesus is and what it looks like to be a part of the kingdom of God. And I want to kick off this morning with a kind of an interesting question that I want to lead in with. Have you ever been completely wrong about something? Completely wrong, like something that you avoided in life and then you ended up discovering later that it was one of the best things that ever happened to you. Like maybe for some of you, it's a food. Like one of them for me was sauerkraut. Like I couldn't stand sauerkraut when I was a kid, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I never tasted it. It just smelled bad. It looked weird. And then as I got older and I tried it and got to know the Reuben sandwich, and I'm like, man, some sauerkraut in the right places is a good thing. Maybe for some of you, it was a job. Maybe students, it was a class that you avoided for a long time, and then you finally took it, and you're like, wow, I kind of like this content. Maybe you even ended up changing your major because you enjoyed it so much. Or maybe for some of us today, it's a person, right? Somebody that we avoided in life, or maybe our initial just experience with them caused us to avoid. And then over time, we got to know them a little bit, and they became a pretty big part of our life.

I think that sometimes we learn that the things that we resist the most oftentimes become the things that we appreciate the most in life. And what's interesting for me is that we usually don't realize that we were wrong or that we misjudged whatever that thing is until we experience it, right? Like at some point, we made up our minds. We decided, hey, this thing isn't for us without even realizing that we were avoiding something that would make our lives so much better. And I just, I want to kind of, I want to kind of put out there, what if we do that sometimes with our relationship with God? What if we avoid some things? What if there's something that God is inviting us into that we just have a tendency to push away, not because it's bad, but because we've misjudged it? You know, we spend so much time thinking about what it might cost us that we've never stopped to consider what God is trying to give us on the other side of it. Whatever that something might be for you today, here's my challenge as your pastor. Don't let what it might cost you keep you from discovering what God wants to give you. And today, what we're going to do is we're going to, we're going to hop into Matthew chapter 8, and I want to show you one short sentence today. It's a short sentence that's tucked inside of a miracle that we read past and can read past so quickly that we don't even recognize the significance of what's being communicated. Because inside this one sentence that we're going to look at is a truth that has the power to completely change the way that we see Jesus' greatest invitation outside of salvation in our life. And so, if you've got your Bibles, smart phones, you could head to the tap dot, Matthew chapter 8, and I've entitled today's message, The Cost of No, The Cost of No. So we've been looking in Matthew, and again, Matthew, if you're hopping in for the first time, Matthew chapter 5 through 7 was Jesus' sermon on the mount, and over those three chapters, He's teaching about what the kingdom of God looks like. Then as we transition into Matthew chapter eight and nine, Jesus is now taking those lessons that he taught about

and he's living them out. He's helping people to be able to connect the lesson with reality and how they live their life. And what we're gonna find in Matthew chapter eight is now all of a sudden Jesus is going to Peter's house and many of us probably know Peter. We understand that at some point along the way, Peter becomes a pivotal leader in the early church that on the day of Pentecost, God uses him to preach a sermon and thousands of people come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but this isn't quite the same Peter. This Peter that we're gonna look at today, he's still in the early stages of just watching Jesus and learning from Jesus. He's one of the newest disciples Peter that he's not the spiritually mature Peter later that's preaching, he is the one that's just started following Jesus and he's trying to figure out who this Jesus guy is. And all of a sudden Jesus walks into Peter's house and look what it says in verse 14. That when Jesus entered Peter's house, that he sees his mother-in-law that's lying sick with a fever and you can imagine a fever in those days is gonna be a lot worse, more catastrophic than a fever in our day. And here's what it says in verse 15,

this is what I want you to see. That he touched her hand and the fever left her and she rose and began to serve. She rose and began to serve. Now I wanna submit to you today that the miracle itself might not be the crazy part of the story, that what might be the crazy part is what actually happened next. What this woman, his mother-in-law did. Now I want you to think about what we just read for a second and I want you to think about what Matthew doesn't tell us in this text. He doesn't mention her name. He doesn't mention her testimony or the rest of her life. He doesn't mention whether she becomes a well-known follower of Jesus or not. In fact, this is the first time and the last time that this woman is ever mentioned in scripture. And so why would Matthew drop these two sentences into this chapter? Like if you read the next verse, Matthew goes on and Matthew makes this statement about how Jesus healed all the sick people. And so Matthew could have easily, easily grouped her in with all of the other people. But instead of doing that, he decides to specifically mention her moment. And you have to wonder why. You have to wonder why Matthew would have gone to the trouble of specifically mentioning this woman.

And I think it's because Matthew wants us to see her response. He wants us to see her response to Jesus touching her life. Her response was she got up and she served. Now, in some translations, it says that she prepared a meal and I just wanna kind of throw out there to you today that if you look at the original word of serve that Matthew uses in this text, it is the same root word for the word deacon. That what Matthew is trying to communicate here is that this isn't just some kind of random act that she does that she's just gonna prepare a meal. He is indicating here that her response was both practical and spiritual. You see, for this woman, after Jesus touches her, her response to serve wasn't something that she had to do. It was something that she wanted to do. Because friend, that's. That's what happens when you and I genuinely encounter the grace of God in our life. That's why Paul says this in Titus chapter 2, verse 14, he says that he gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people. Here's the challenge, is many of us stop at that point. But Paul goes on to say totally committed to doing good deeds. Totally committed. Did you catch that? Like the gift of God's grace doesn't just forgive us, but it begins to reshape what we value in our life. So when Peter's mother-in-law gets up and starts to serve, Matthew isn't just giving us some unnecessary like random detail that she began to serve and make a meal. He's actually showing us what God's grace should produce in each of our lives.

And so if serving became her natural response to Jesus touching her life and changing her life, then shouldn't that be our response too? Shouldn't our response also be to serve when Jesus touches us and changes us and heals us and does a work in our life? You see, the problem is, is that we often become so focused on what serving might cost us that we've completely overlooked what God wants to give us through it. And that's why so many followers of Jesus miss out on one of the greatest invitations that Jesus gives us. Not because they don't love Jesus, but because they've not considered what waits for them on the other side of their yes. So today I want to, I want to give you four things, four things that you and I miss out on when we say no to Jesus's invitation. Four things that we miss out on. The first one is this, that you'll miss out on a life that you were created to live. One of the deepest questions that humanity asks is, why am I here? There's got to be a deeper reason why I'm here than to wake up and go to work every day or to go to school every day and feel like I'm on the hamster wheel of the same thing over and over and over again. Deep down inside of every single one of us, we want to know that our life mattered and it made a difference. However, most, most people end up spending their lives chasing a comfortable life when Jesus is inviting us into a meaningful one. And there's a difference. A comfortable life asks, what can I get? A meaningful life asks, what can I give? Jesus put it this way in Matthew chapter 10 verse 39, He said that if you cling to your life, you're going to lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you'll find it. I think Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 what giving our life away looks like. He says in verse 10, for we are God's masterpiece, that He's created us anew in Christ Jesus

so like there's a purpose that's connected to that so we can do the good things that He planned for us long ago. When you look at that, that word in the original there at the end where it says that He planned for us long ago, it's an act. in which Jesus had plans for us before you and I committed our first sin. And I wanna speak to some of you that have missed out on what God is trying to do in your life because you look at the list of mistakes and the things that you've done and who you see yourself to be today as a disqualifier of God using you. And I just wanna speak to something real quick. That when God sent Jesus to die on the cross and when you accepted him as your Lord and Savior and you asked for forgiveness of your sin, that wasn't something that was just in the past, but he was forgiving you of your past, your present, and your future. That he was forgiving you in such a way so that you could do the things that he had created you for from the beginning of time. Think of it like this, think of purpose like this. Imagine walking into somebody's house and you see this beautiful grand piano. The problem is the grand piano is set up as their dining room table. Sure, it can function as a dining room table, but the grand piano wasn't designed to hold plates and cups and silverware and food.

The piano was designed to make music. And in the same way, what often happens in our life is we spend our whole life chasing after things, chasing after money and success and comfort, all the while missing out on the whole reason why God created us in the first place. And friend, that's why serving matters. Because friend, you're never gonna discover God's purpose for your life if you're unwilling to participate in God's work. I think the second thing that we see that we'll miss out on is, I love this one, we'll miss out on having people in our corner. We'll miss out on having people in our corner. Here's what you gotta know, all of us get knocked down in life. Can I get an amen? Anybody ever been knocked down in their life? That's not something that's just like, all of us get knocked down in life. I think the question is, who do you have in your corner to help you get back up? I love Proverbs 24, 16, one of my favorite verses. It says that the godly may trip seven times, but what? They get up again. It only takes one disaster to overthrow the wicked, but the righteous, they just get up again. And I love that because it shows us that righteous people aren't people who never fall, they're not people who are perfect,

they're people who keep getting back up again. But here's the million dollar question. How do we keep getting back up? How do we do it? And I think we see in Ecclesiastes chapter four, verse nine, two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls and the other can reach out and help, but someone who falls alone, they're in real trouble. Verse 12 says a person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer, three are even better for a triple braided cord is not easily broken. I like to think of it this way, think of a boxer, that at the end of every round, what do they do? They go back to their corner. Not because the fight is over, but because they need people who can see what they can't see. They need people who can clean up the cuts, they need people who will remind them that they still have another round in them. People who will look them in the eye and say, get back up. get back out there, you can do this. And friend, we miss out on those kind of connections, having people in our corner, when our response to God's grace in our life isn't one of service.

I think a third one that we miss out on is we miss out on becoming who God wants us to be. I think one of the biggest frustrations that many Christians have is, is we keep learning more about Jesus, but then when we evaluate our life, not a whole lot changes. Like, we come to church, we'll read the Bible, we'll do our verse for the day, we'll listen to some sermons or podcasts, we'll go to a Bible study. I mean, we know more about God today than we ever have in our entire life, but yet we're still impatient. We're still selfish, we're still anxious, we're still struggling with the same attitudes and the same addictions. And so what's missing in our life? Like, if we know more about God now than we ever have, but yet nothing's really changing in our life than what's missing. And I think we find a glimpse of the answer to that in John chapter 13. In John 13, Jesus, it's that moment that Jesus is washing his disciples' feet. And at the end of that moment, as he ends washing his disciples' feet, he stands up and he looks at his disciples and he asks this question. He says, do you understand what I'm doing?

I think he asked that because Jesus wanted to make sure that the disciples knew that this moment was way bigger than just washing feet, that this moment was about becoming the kind of person that'll lay down a title, that'll lay down authority, that will lay down a position in order to serve God. To serve other people. And he says this in verse 17. He says, now that you know these things to his disciples, God's gonna bless you for doing them. I don't know if you caught it in that verse, but the blessing wasn't found in the knowing. The blessing was found in the doing. Come on. I mean, if you think about it, that's how Jesus developed his own disciples, right? Like Jesus didn't gather them all together and in a classroom and teach them a bunch of information. Jesus didn't gather them in an auditorium like this and preach to them all the time. No, he invited them into his mission. It was within the mission of Jesus that they began to be developed into becoming more like Jesus. Because here's what Jesus knew and this is what I've learned in my own life, that there are some things that God can only teach us while we serve. Like you and I don't grow in patience

until we have to serve some difficult people. Can I get an amen? Like, we want to avoid the difficult people, not realizing that God uses the difficult people to develop our character and our intelligence and our ability to serve God. Our character and our integrity and patience in our lives. Like you and I don't grow in humility until we choose to put others above ourselves. Here's one, you and I don't grow in faith until we decide to step outside of our comfort zone. Like faith is only developed in the seasons and the circumstances that we realize that we can't do this on our own. And most of us spend all of our life trying to avoid these things, right? Not realizing that God is wanting to use these things in order to create something better and greater within us. And then the fourth one is that we miss out on seeing God work through us. You know, for many. Maybe the idea of serving, when you hear that and you realize that today we're talking about serving and the group expo, like it can feel a little overwhelming. Like in your mind you're thinking, I'm already busy, I'm already tired, I'm already doing everything that I can to try to keep my head above water. For you, maybe the last thing that you think you need is one more thing on your calendar or one more responsibility or obligation, and I just want to say I get it. I get it, but what if the thing that you think will empty you or drain you is the thing that God is wanting to use to fill you? I don't know, Ryan.

I don't know if I could go with that. I don't know, Proverbs 11, 25. The generous are the ones that are going to prosper. Generous means, right, we give of ourselves, whatever that is. It's not necessarily just money. It's every area of our life. If we are generous with the way that we live our life, our life, the promise is that we will prosper. The second promise is those that refresh others, those that make an impact and a difference in the lives of others will themselves be refreshed. I think it's crazy because we assume that serving is going to drain us, but God says that serving actually refreshes us. Now I know what you might be thinking, like I tried serving and all it did was wear me out, and I get that too. I've seen it. I've experienced it myself, but can I say I don't think that that's the kind of serving that Proverbs is describing here. Maybe it wasn't the serving that wore you out. Maybe it was the unhealthy rhythms that wore you out. Maybe it was the constant serving and giving without receiving that wore you out. Maybe it was never being shown the connection between what you're doing in the mission of what God wants to do and how it's making an impact and a difference in the lives of others. Because friend, here's what I know to be true, that when serving flows out of purpose instead of pressure, purpose instead of task, instead of expectations, instead of I have to do this, but it's purpose, that God doesn't just make a difference through you in the lives of others, but He makes a difference in you. I was thinking this week that I could stand up here and I could share, you know, all the different ways that serving and joining a dream team would have a positive impact on your life, but I thought who could do a better job with that is to have somebody that's on our dream team to share what serving has meant to them.

I want to share a text message with you. Somebody in our church that's a part of our Liberty Correctional team, and they were talking about one of the Wednesday night services that they volunteered for at Liberty, and here's what they said, that when the inmates heard this yesterday that the room erupted, that it was so powerful to be in that room and to feel that many people feel convicted at one time, that I thought about it this morning and it brings tears to my eyes. I've always felt nervous to raise my hand and worship, but I couldn't help it in that room. I'll never forget that feeling. I don't know about you, but there's two phrases that jumped out to me in that text that it brought tears to my eyes, and that I'll never forget that feeling. Friend, here's what I love. This person was going to Liberty to be a blessing to somebody else. having no idea that God was going to use that experience to be a blessing to him. And that's the invitation. That's the invitation that Jesus extends to you and I. That's what waits on the other side of us, of us saying yes. That's what waits on the other side of us saying no. Would you bow your head with me? This morning I wonder, what invitation have you been saying no to? Not because you don't love Jesus, but because you've been so focused on what you thought it would cost you. Maybe today's message for you, maybe it wasn't about serving. Maybe what the Lord has been prompting in your heart is a difficult conversation.

It's forgiving somebody that has hurt you in your past. Or maybe today it is. So today, before you walk out these doors, a challenge to you is don't just ask God, what will this require of me? Ask God, what are you wanting to do in me? What have I been missing out on? Because I've been unwilling to say yes. Share it with a friend because you never know how it could transform someone's life. If you're interested in checking out our service times, make sure you go to our website at transformtlh.com and we hope to see you at TC on a Sunday. Thanks so much and have a great day.