It’s All About Jesus

There are two phrases I want to leave with you that I've said before. God is 100% in control and God is 100% good. And the times when we need to say that, as they may sound like it's easy to say, is when things are really difficult.

Because I found from scripture too that God speaks the loudest when the difficulties are the hardest and when the trials are the hardest is when the stage of God's light can shine the brightest. And I find that the difficult storms may not just be difficult times in our lives, it may also be times when we keep seeking God for something and we don't seem to get the victory. We may seem to be asking God, God I'm seriously trying to overcome sin but I'm not getting the victory.

That's when I have to hold tightly, tie myself to these two truths. God is 100% in control and God is 100% good. Because that's what the devil is trying to draw and steal from us.

That's what he did to Eve. When he told Eve, is God really good? That's what God was trying to show Job. It's not about you and your faithfulness, it's about God.

That's what the devil tried to test in Jesus too. 40 days and the devil came and looked at him and said, is God really 100% in control? Is God really 100% good? Would a good God allow you to be left alone to take 40 days of being assaulted by the devil himself? Is God really in control? And what's up with this prayer of yours? Give us this day our daily bread. Daily bread for 40 days you've been going, there's no bread.

And for 30 years, over 10,000 days, you've been living a perfect sinless life and no validation from the religious leaders. Jump down from the temple and show once and for all that you're the leader. Jesus wasn't sucked in by that.

He held fast to the truth that God is 100% in control, God is 100% good. And so that even when we're failing and our track record doesn't show it, and our overcomer status doesn't show it, we can still hold fast to the truth that God is 100% good and 100% in control. Because it's not about my track record, it's about God.

And I can hold fast to that, regardless of what's going on. And that's one of the big things that I kind of really need to realize as I'm going through this. But where do I get the proof for it? Because the world, the flesh, my friends, the devil is going to tell me, is it really true? How can you prove it to me? It's that verse in Romans chapter 8, verse 32.

A lot of us know Romans 8.28, a lot of us know Romans 8.29. But Romans 8.28 and Romans 8.29 are based on the foundation of Romans 8.32. If we don't have Romans 8.32 properly consumed, our authority to be able to live out Romans 8.28 and Romans 8.29 is shaky. And I like Romans 8.28, verse 29 and 32 in a way it's almost like John 3.16, where it says, He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he and not allow with him freely give us all things? Underline the word spare. Look saints, when God saw the angels who sinned, he didn't spare them, but he condemned them to hell, reserving them for judgment.

When the world was so filthy in Noah's time, he didn't spare them and he destroyed all of them, only saving Noah and the eight of his family. But when it came to us, enemies of God, he spared us and he did not spare his own son. That's the contrast.

The gospel is not just that God spared me, but that he did not spare his own son. That is why I got to fix my eyes and keep turning my eyes to Jesus, the author and the finisher of this faith in believing that God is a hundred percent good and God is a hundred percent in control. I've got to fix my eyes in Jesus.

Philippians 2, Paul talks about this, about the beauty of Jesus. He said that he gave up everything and left the perfection and the purity of heaven to come and live among the filthiest of places, sinful earth. And then he lived in perfect obedience to his father for 30 years.

And then all the way until he experienced the shame of dying on the cross, the public humiliation of being identified with the worst of criminals. And worst of all, he endured eternal separation from the father on the cross. Why have you forsaken me? But because of that, you know, I'm referring to Philippians chapter two.

It's in context to that, that Paul then says, therefore God highly exalted him and gave him a name above all other names so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. So our destination has to be, yes, I want to be like Jesus, but what is the destination that I want to be like Jesus for so that I can testify with my mouth, Jesus is Lord. Winning the battle will allow me to say that I have become more and more like Jesus, but that's not the ultimate goal.

The ultimate goal that Jesus went through all of those pain war was so that I could say, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord of a hundred percent of my life. God is a hundred percent in control of everything. And in view of everything, he's allowing me to go through the boss, sending me difficult emails, the boss treating me as biased against my coworkers, my having trouble overcoming sin, even though it's been years, Lord, are you being faithful? I don't see victory as being achievable in any remote possibility.

God is a hundred percent in control. God is a hundred percent good in allowing everything that happens in my life. And Jesus must become a hundred percent Lord.

You see that in Job's life too. If you ask Job, what is the summary of your whole life? James gives me the answer in less than 10 words, James chapter 5 verse 11, the Lord is full of compassion and merciful. The testimony of Job is not, well, I became like Jesus.

The testimony of Job is, the Lord is. And so the testimony of my life is not, I'm becoming more and more like Jesus as I survey my life at the end of my life. It's not I've become more and more like Jesus.

The testimony of my life is, Jesus is Lord, a hundred percent of my life, in every area of my life. And God is a hundred percent in control of everything that has ever happened to me. No email, no WhatsApp message, no comment has been said that it didn't go through God's filter.

And God is a hundred percent good in allowing everything that has happened to me because I'm in the pursuit of making Jesus a hundred percent Lord. So give us thy songs. I want to sing that song until the end of my life.

Give us thy songs, O thou maker of music. Teach me to sing, O thou bringer of joy, till nothing can silence the notes of our triumph. And Jesus is Lord resounds from every voice.

The devil one day will also say Jesus is Lord. It'll burst forth from his voice at the end of the day. But for me as a Christian, for us as Christians, we started saying that.

Let's get it to a hundred percent where it resounds, Jesus is Lord. May that be the song that comes out of my life, my family's life, and all of your lives. Thank you.