Sermon on Trusting God to Guide | May 25, 2025

As the two congregations I serve prepare for some upcoming conversations about our mission and vision, today’s message focuses on discerning God’s guidance for all of us together as a congregation and as individual followers of Jesus. Looking at today’s three lectionary-appointed Scripture passages from Acts 16:6-15, Psalm 67, and John 5:1-9, I explore how God might be calling us into the future. I found helpful this page on N.T. Wright’s site with some helpful information on where Paul journeyed and some reflection on the Spirit’s rejection of their plans to go to Asia.

Here’s the livestream from Living Hope and the sermon podcast audio from Christ the King.

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Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen

Where is God calling us next?

Some of you know our congregation is beginning some work together on setting goals, having conversations about discerning God’s vision for the next few years of our church.

I think it’s really easy for churches to get caught up in the day-to-day rhythms and seasons, and for church councils to focus on budgets and building repairs. Often, the only times a church steps back to look at the wider picture is after a pastor leaves, when you’re working on congregational profiles to call a new pastor.

So as church council, we’ve been wondering what it might look like to do some of this work when there’s no immediate deadline or crisis.

You’re stuck with me as pastor for now, and the building is relatively functional. We did fix a roof leak this week at Christ the King and we need to do some parking lot re-sealing, and Living Hope has two more furnaces on their last legs, but structurally most things are holding up.

Coming up in the next few  months, we’ll have some listening sessions, times to pray together, share hopes and dreams, talk about where we’ve come from, and ask where God might be leading us next. I hope you’ll all be part of this visioning process.

As we enter this discernment season, I think all three of today’s Scripture readings are helpful and appropriate.

The first verses of Psalm 67 are a great place to start. Read it again with me: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations.”

We say this together as a prayer, because the future of our church is in God’s hands. We can go through the best process, come up with all sorts of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound (smart) goals, hire consultants, but without God’s blessing, none of our plans are going anywhere.

We are God’s people, the Body of Christ. We’re called to rely on God, not just on ourselves.

If you only read that first verse, it might sound a little selfish, like we’re asking God to make us great, or to give us a good church to be proud of. That’s a trap we can fall into.

But the second verse makes it clear: We’re asking God to bless us, so that God’s ways may be known. We are here not to lift up ourselves, not so we look good, but to proclaim God.

Whatever specifics end up in a mission statement, we’re here first and foremost to proclaim the love of Jesus.

So when we ask for God’s blessing, we’re asking for God to bless the work we’re doing in Jesus’ name. We’re asking for God’s hand to bring us people, resources, ideas, all so we can love our neighbors better, share God’s love more generously, so that more people will know the good news of Jesus. That’s a goal worth having.

Read those verses one more time with me, as a prayer: “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus meets a man by the pool of Beth-zatha. If you look in most Bibles, this story actually goes from verse 3 to verse 5, and it’s a little confusing what’s going on, so at some point some people inserted another bit to explain it, John 5:4.

Basically, this pool is a special place of healing, and when the water is stirred up, the first person to enter the pool is made well. That’s a little magical and superstitious for my taste, but either way, the guy in the story can’t get in the pool fast enough. He’s apparently been ill for thirty-eight years, yet never quite manages to be the first one in.

Seeing him, Jesus asks him a simple question: “Do you want to be made well?” Isn’t that an interesting question?

The answer should be obvious—he’s ill, he’s there for healing, of course he wants to be made well.

But listen to his answer: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

Maybe this isn’t quite fair to him, but to me, this sounds like an excuse. It’s been years, and never once have you managed to get someone to help you in? Do you want to be healed?

Again, I certainly don’t want to blame the victim. I wish healing were always as easy as saying the right prayer or doing the right work, and it’s just not. But maybe in this situation Jesus is asking a good question: “Do you actually want to be healed?”

Perhaps that’s a question for us in this process. What is it we’re seeking to do as a church? Do we actually want to grow? New people change things.

Do we want to be a voice in our community? Do we want to include people who aren’t here yet?

Because if the answer is no, if we’re content with the path we’re on, then we can save a lot of work. If this church doesn’t have something valuable to offer, if we don’t believe God is doing something special here, it’s a viable option to shut our doors and we all join another church in town. Do we want to be the body of Christ here in this time and place?

And if so, what are we willing to risk? Are we willing to risk our relatively comfortable, mostly stable building?

Are we willing to risk our own preferences, our traditions, the things that make us comfortable? Are we willing to risk God redirecting us on a different path?

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” And his life changes. Everything he’s been used to for 38 years is different. Even his healing doesn’t come how he’d anticipated. Jesus doesn’t help him into the pool; he tells him, “Get up.” And by God’s grace, he does.

Whether or not he’s able or willing to do the work for healing, Jesus isn’t ready to give up on him. I think that’s pretty encouraging.

One more reading, from the book of Acts. Last week, I mentioned the Jerusalem Council, where the apostles met to decide the question of what was expected of Gentile converts to Christianity. They agreed there was no need to become Jewish before you could follow Jesus.

Everyone is welcome in God’s kingdom. God’s love is for the whole world.

A while later, Paul sets out on a tour, visiting various churches in Syria and what’s now Turkey. Things seem to be going well—verse 5 says “The churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers daily.”

But then—and I think this is one of the strangest verses in the Bible—“They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.”

“The Holy Spirit forbade them to speak the word.” What? Didn’t we just say we’re here first and foremost to proclaim the love of Jesus? Aren’t we always supposed to be speaking the word? 1 Peter says always be prepared to give an accounting for the hope that is within you. I miss plenty of opportunities to share about Jesus, but I’d like to be better at catching them!

But here, Paul and Timothy’s good plans don’t match God’s intentions. God has other plans for them, and the Holy Spirit says no.

I don’t know what it looked like when the Holy Spirit stopped them. I don’t know if that was something as simple as a “road closed” sign, and when they took the detour, they ended up in Troas? Or maybe more spiritual, an angel in a dream? Maybe it just didn’t seem to be working out.

One of the things that’s tricky in talking about God’s guidance is that some things are just coincidences, and some things are God-cidences, and we don’t usually know until later which is which.

But after their travel plans fall apart, Paul has a vision of a man from Macedonia, who pleads, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Verse 10: “When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.”

As we seek to discern where God is calling us to go, perhaps it’s just as important to ask God to stop us when we try to go the wrong direction. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.” We try things, we (faithfully and boldly) throw things against the wall, and God decides what sticks.

Our goal is to discern what God is doing, and to join in God’s work. The danger comes when we set a goal and ignore whether or not it’s within God’s will. It takes faith to accept and follow when God has a different plan than we expect.

And this isn’t just about the church as a whole. It applies to you too, graduates, and to everyone here. When your plans don’t work out, when things don’t go the way you expect or want, trust that God is still at work, and try something else.

Will you pray in this season for God to direct our steps? Will you pray for God to guide our conversations, to show us how to best proclaim the good news? Will you pray for God to bless our church—not for our own sake, but so that we can share God’s love?

And will you trust in God to answer our prayers? Will you trust in God to guide us?
Amen