Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Happy New Year, everybody. I hope you all had a great Christmas season. God blessed our church in incredible ways through the Christmas season. Really, He blessed us throughout 2011.

2011 will go down in our history as a watershed year. We made so many strides for God’s Kingdom. We saw so many lost people become found people. We saw even more people who already loved Jesus formally unite with our church and our vision. 2011 was one of the most blessed years in ACC’s long history.

This year marks our church’s 60th birthday. Our church is getting close to collecting social security checks. But by God’s grace, we are not getting older. We’re getting better.

By God’s grace, we’re getting better at loving each other. We’re getting better at focusing on people who desperately need Jesus. We’re getting better at saying “we will” instead of “I want.” We’re getting better at pursuing God’s will instead of our individual agendas.

And that’s what we’re going to talk about as we kick off 2012.

I don’t have to understand God’s ways. Say that out loud with me. I don’t have to understand God’s ways. Say it one more time. I don’t have to understand God’s ways.

In Job 37, the Bible says, “God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding.” (Job 37:5, NIV)

And in Isaiah 55, the Bible says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9, NIV)

You don’t understand God’s ways. Neither do I. But the good news is that we don’t have to.

In a way, that’s really freeing. It’s freeing to know that I don’t always have to understand and approve of what God is doing. I also don’t have to defend what God is doing.

Some of us feel like we’re God’s defense attorney. We always have to defend Jesus to people who want to take shots at Him.

Here’s the good news…you can stop now. Jesus doesn’t need you to defend Him. A lot of times, when we try to defend Jesus to someone who is hostile toward our faith, we end up doing more harm than good because it denigrates into an angry argument.

That’s not our job. Jesus is a big boy. He doesn’t need us to defend Him. But He does call us to serve Him.

I don’t have to understand God’s ways. I simply have to follow God’s will.

There’s a big difference between understanding God’s ways and following God’s will. A lot of times, we won’t understand why God does what He does. Many times…I would even say most of the time…what God calls us to do does not make logical sense to us. And when we do follow God’s will, the results are not what we would expect.

When we do the work of God, when we follow God’s will, when we position ourselves to be used by God, we won’t always understand the results. But we are also not called to understand the results.

In the book of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul spent some time absolutely ripping on the believers in the city of Corinth. Their perspective had really gotten out of whack, and Paul was trying to get it back in whack.

These Christians were all arguing about which leader they were following. Instead of saying, “We’re all following Jesus,” they were arguing about who was the best leader in the church. Some of them followed Paul. Some followed Apollos.

Today, this would be an argument about whose church is better. Who is your favorite preacher/teacher?

Recently I was talking to someone in our church who visited another church with some family. After the service, a family member asked this person, “So, do you like our pastor better? Or do you like Mike’s preaching better?”

Do you understand the insanity of that argument? We’re both on the same team! As long as I’m preaching Jesus and that other pastor is preaching Jesus, that’s all that matters!

A lot of you are very generous in the way you speak to me and about me. And I want you to know that I really do appreciate it. Your encouragement means so much to me. But you also need to know that I don’t spend my time comparing myself to other pastors.

I listen to a lot of preachers. I learn from them. I respect them. I look up to them. But I don’t compare myself to them. If I’m more gifted than them or if they’re more gifted than me…it doesn’t matter. What matters is, “Are we all preaching the gospel? If so, then nothing else matters.”

Same goes for churches. It’s very tempting for churches our size to compare ourselves to bigger churches with better buildings, more staff, more abundant resources, etc. That’s a losing game.

If God has blessed those churches, we should celebrate their blessings. But we also can’t overlook our own blessings.

Comparison leads to competition. And when churches start competing against each other, Satan is the one that wins.

That’s the kind of thing that was happening in the city of Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul told them, “You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.” (1 Corinthians 3:3-5, NIV)

Paul is fed up with the immaturity of the believers in Corinth. They are fighting about who they follow. They are arguing over who is the better leader. They are fighting over whose segment of the kingdom is doing better, They’re all trying to establish the superiority of their “dude,” but they’re missing the point of who both Paul and Apollos serve.

That is divisive and dangerous. When we attach ourselves to a person instead of the message, or a church instead of THE CHURCH we are missing the point.

I am privileged to be your pastor. And I am blessed that my preaching ministers to you. I am blessed that God used me to lead a lot of you to Christ.

But if I go out and get mowed down by a Greyhound bus tomorrow, this church is not going to fold. ACC will continue to take new ground. People will still come to Jesus. The Kingdom will continue to advance.

I am simply what Paul said that he and Apllos were. A servant through whom you came to believe, as the Lord has assigned my task.

I’m just a servant doing my God-assigned task. And that’s what you are, too. God has given you and me our tasks. And our job is to live them out. Do the work that God has called us to do. Keep following His will.

But our job is not the final result. Look at the next verses in 1 Corinthians 3. Paul said, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:6-9, NIV)

Paul and Apollos were like farmers. Paul planted the seed. Apollos watered it. But neither of them actually made it grow.

I grew up in a farming community. I worked on several farms as a kid, so I had some firsthand experience with seeing things grow. None of the farmers I worked for every made anything grow. They cultivated. They planted. They irrigated. They fertilized. But ultimately, they didn’t make that seed grow. They were faithful in their job, which created a situation where the seed could grow. But ultimately, growth comes from God. No farmer has ever made anything grow.

But when it comes to our lives, we want to force growth. We want to make things happen. We want to focus on the final results.

But remember that Paul said, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.” All we did was follow the will of God. But only God makes things grow. The end result was up to Him.

How hard is that to understand and live? We WANT to believe that if you put the right amount of talent with the right amount of resources and follow the right kind of model that we will see the results we desire.

So we do the right things. We buy the parenting book and follow all the instructions. We listen to the employment guru tell us how to move up the ladder in our job. We hear the pastor say, “Have faith, take the risk,” so we do.

And then, the end result is not what we expected. Or what we wanted.

We followed the instructions. We made sure the formula was right. But the end result is not what it should have been. We planted the seed. We watered the seed. But we couldn’t make it grow.

For some of you, 2011 was really a year of disappointment. And it doesn’t seem fair because you did things right. You followed the instructions. But your seed isn’t growing.

Your family is not like you thought it would be. Your finances are not what you thought they would be. Your (fill in the blank) is what you thought it would be. Your seed just isn’t growing.

Here’s the thing about seeds. A lot of growth happens underground. Out of sight. When you plant a seed, a lot of growth happens before you ever see that plant pop out of the ground. Just because you can’t see a seed growing doesn’t mean that it’s not growing.

In a couple of weeks, I will be celebrating my 6th anniversary at ACC. Six years. And one of the things that I’ve learned over the last six years is that God is charge of final results. Not me.

When I walked in six years ago, I knew what I was doing. And I knew what was going to happen. Six years ago, if you wanted to know how things were going to go, all you had to do was ask me and I would tell you. I was confident, to the point of arrogance.

Then I learned a hard lesson. Things do not operate on my timetable. Things do not go as I plan. Many times, the results are not what I expected…or what I wanted.

Honestly, when I came to ACC six years ago, I thought our church would double in size in less than a year. And initially, we grew like wildfire. And then the bottom fell out and we shrank by almost 50%. We were running two services. We had to scale back to one. People left in droves. And I felt like a total failure.

I was incredibly, incredibly humbled. Which is exactly what God needed to do for me. He had to break me so he could actually use me. I wanted a church that was exploding in growth. God wanted a humble, broken leader. And God won.

At one of my lowest points in this process, I was talking to a mentor. His ministry in Chicago was exploding, but he had also been where I was at that moment. His name is Scott. I asked Scott, “What do I do? I really believe our church is following God’s will, but the results just aren’t there.”

He gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received. He simply said, “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

That was in 2010. Then came 2011, where we experienced some of the most aggressive, most far-reaching growth our church has ever seen. And we’re now being set up to do see even greater blessings in 2012. But none of that would have happened if we had given up. None of that would have happened if we trusted in the results we were seeing rather than the invisible work that God was doing.

What about you? Where are you just not seeing results? As you look back on the year that has just passed, where did things not fall into place as you had expected? Where are you absolutely confident that you are following God’s will, but you simply don’t understand His ways?

Look again at what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:8. “The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.” (1 Corinthians 3:8, NIV)

Make sure you read that correctly. God rewards us for our labor. Not for our results.

A lot of us feel like a failure because we’re not experiencing the successful results that other people are experiencing. You compare yourself to other people who seem to be so much more successful than you.

Paul reminds us that, in the judgment of our lives, God is not interested in the results that you were able to achieve; he’s interested in the work that you’ve done. That’s because he’s the one generating the growth. He’s the one making things happen, even if the growth that is happening is currently underground and out of sight.

C.S. Lewis said, “It is not your business to succeed, but to do right; when you have done so, the rest lies with God”

God has not called you to be successful. He has called you to be faithful.

“God, I keep inviting my friend to church. But they never, ever come.”

“God, I keep on teaching my kids your ways, but they seem to keep rejecting it.”

“God, I keep praying that you will heal me, but I’m still sick.”

“God, I’m doing all the right things. But the results never seem to show up.”

What we have to remember is that results are God’s domain. The God who created everything is still alive and He still makes things grow. But He does it in His way in His time.

Six years ago, I never thought our church would be where it is today. I thought we would be huge. I thought we would have a new campus. I thought we would be exploding on every front.

Guess what? I still believe that’s going to happen. In fact, I KNOW that’s going to happen. But what I didn’t know then and what I do understand now is that God had to do a work in us before He could do a work through us. In His time…in His ways that are beyond our understanding…He has done and He is still doing that work. And now, we’re just beginning to see the growth that has been happening all along. Do I believe that huge things are on the way? I absolutely do. But as I have matured spiritually, I have come to fully understand and embrace the truth that God makes things grow. God is the one who generates the results that He wants in the way that He wants in the time that He wants.

God doesn’t expect us to generate the results. He wants us to generate the work. He wants us to sow the seed…water the seed…and stand back to watch Him work in the growth.

We read these verses from Isaiah 55 earlier. Let’s read them again, except this time we’re going to read on a little further.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. [I don’t have to understand God’s ways.]

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:8-11, NIV)

God will accomplish His will. God said that no Word from His mouth will ever return to Him empty. Every Word God speaks will accomplish what HE wants. It will achieve HIS purpose.

If God has spoken a Word into your life, it will accomplish its purpose. If you keep following the will of God, even when it’s hard…even when it doesn’t make sense…even when the results just aren’t there…God will give the growth that He planned. God will bring about the results that He planned all along.

For some of us, 2011 was a long, tough year. We’re not really entering into 2012 with joy and expectation. Instead, we’re limping into this New Year.

God’s Word for you today is a word of trust. If you are living in the will of God, keep going. Keep planting. Keep watering. And trust that God is making things grow, even if you can’t see the results right now.

If you ever want to see someone who was following God’s will with seemingly no results, you don’t have to look any further than Jesus. Jesus did everything right…literally. He was following God’s will absolutely perfectly. And it got Him crucified.

In first century Jewish culture, crucifixion was not just an execution. It was the ultimate mark of failure. If someone was crucified, it meant that they had failed in every single way imaginable. It was the most cursed way to die.

That’s one reason why all of Jesus’ followers left Him at the end of His life. All of the visible results from Jesus’ life were signs that God had rejected Him and that He was not at all who they thought He was.

Then came the resurrection. The visible sign of the work that God had been doing all along. The sign that the ultimate victory belongs to the Lord.

Jesus’ followers did not understand what was happening at the time. Maybe you don’t understand what’s happening right now. I don’t pretend that I can explain everything to you. But I can tell you this. After the crucifixion, there is resurrection. You may not understand God’s ways. In fact, you probably don’t understand God’s ways. But if you keeping following His will, crucifixion will always lead to resurrection.

Earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul said, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18, NIV)

The cross didn’t make sense. Jesus looked like a fool and a failure to everyone who saw His crucifixion. But they didn’t realize the work of God that was going on behind the scenes. They didn’t realize that the cross was going to be God’s way to save the world. All they knew was what they saw.

The cross is the ultimate proof that you can’t trust what see. God is growing a seed that you can’t see. He is doing a work that you can’t understand at the moment.

But the cross is also all the evidence you need to know that God has not left you. He has not given up on you. And His work will be completed in you.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: 1 Corinthians, faith, results, Seeds, trust,