Saying Yes to God Even When It’s Hard
What does it mean to live a life that says, “Yes, Lord!” in every situation, no matter the circumstance, even when what God is asking of you is hard?
Ones and Zeros
This past week I did what I always do on Wednesday mornings. Wednesdays are my sermon writing days. Some of you who are curious have asked me before how I do what I do when it comes to writing sermons. It’s a process for me… but part of that process happens every Wednesday morning.
I get up early, before anyone else in the house wakes up. I get a cup of coffee. I go to my desk. I open all the notes I’ve been making in the days leading up to this moment. I open my computer and then… I start typing the first draft of the message.
And then something amazing, almost magical happens. Whenever I touch a letter on my computer keyboard, and I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about how magical and amazing this is before, but every time I touch a letter on my keyboard that SAME LETTER appears on my computer screen! IT’S AMAZING!
I know, some of you have lost the wonder of this. That’s ok. But it really is amazing when you stop and think about it.
Some of you are texting on your phone right now. That’s ok. Go ahead and send that text. But as you do, think about how amazing it is that you can even do that.
They say that you have more computing power in the cell phone in your hand than the astronauts had in their space shuttle when they landed on the moon!
Now, I don’t know much about computers or writing code, but they say that everything in technology is based on a binary system. Essentially, everything comes down to 1s and 0s where 1 = TRUE and 0 = FALSE. Where 1 turns a signal on and 0 turns a signal off. Where 1 = YES and 0 = NO.
By placing those 1s and 0s in a sequence you can assign them to do different things so that now you can type letters into a word processor of your choosing and every letter, when you type that letter on your keyboard, it fires off a sequence of 1s and 0s so that your computer knows what letter you want to appear on your screen.
Very few of us, if any of us, ever think about this when we’re typing a post for social media or writing an email for work or putting an address into our GPS. But we are surrounded by 1s and 0s, byte size pieces of information, YESes and NOs, that make up so much of our world.
Yes and No
And when you stop to think about it, this is true not only in the technology that fills our lives, but in the stories that make up our lives.
If you think about it, our lives are a series of moments to which we either said YES or NO. Some of you laid in bed this morning for 10 more minutes after your alarm went off. You said NO to getting up and YES to staying in bed.
Now that might have been a good thing… you might have needed the rest, or that might have been a bad thing… you might should have gotten up and started your day. I don’t know. I’m not making a judgement about that choice, just pointing out the fact that our lives are a series of YESes and NOs.
The fact that you said YES to studying for the test, or that you said NO to that job offer, or that you said YES to marrying him, or that you said NO to buying that car. Every YES, every NO, makes up the story that is our lives.
And every day you make thousands of little choices. When you put all those together you have… well, you have your life! Someone else might have made different choices and, in fact, they did, that’s why their life is different than your life!
Ok, I don’t want to oversimplify it… I know like you know that there are some things that impact our lives that were not of our choosing, but I do want to emphasize how our lives are shaped by what we say YES to and by what we say NO to.
And what I want us to think about today is this question, Are we willing to say YES Lord to God even when what he’s asking of us is hard? Saying YES to God when it’s something we want to do, that’s easy! Saying YES to God when it means sipping on a cup of coffee in an air conditioned building in a comfortable chair listening to OK preaching… that’s a fairly easy YES Lord!
But what happens when God asks you to do something uncomfortable?
Have you ever had that moment where you realized, you actually had clarity about, what God wanted you to do and you knew it was going to be hard?
The Set Up of a Hard Yes
That’s what happened about 2000 years ago in the life of a man you may have never even heard of before.
In Acts 9, Luke tells us perhaps the most pivotal story in the history of Christianity after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Now, that might sound like a big statement… but this is a VERY IMPORTANT story. And while all the focus of this story typically falls on a person named Saul, I want to focus on the other main character (other than Jesus) in the story.
To give you a little context for this story, in Acts 7, Stephen, a deacon in the church, is murdered. He becomes the first Christian martyr. There’s a great persecution rising against the church in Jerusalem. Because of this, a lot of Christians are fleeing Jerusalem and going to other places, places like the great city of Damascus.
Damascus was a large and important city in Syria, northeast of Jerusalem, and it wasn’t under Roman control at the time. It was controlled by Aretas IV, the Nabatean King.
One of the men who was there in Jerusalem the day Stephen was stoned to death was a rising star in the ranks of the Pharisees. His Hebrew name was Saul. You may know him by his Greek name, Paul.
Saul not only supported the killing of Stephen (Acts 8.1), he was on a mission to lock up, kill, or put an end any way he could to any followers of Jesus of Nazareth (9.1-2).
Saul has just learned that there are many followers of the Way, that’s what they called followers of Jesus, who were headed to Damascus. So he gets letters from the high priest so he can go to Damascus, arrest any followers of Jesus he finds there, and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.
This is intense. The tension is rising for followers of Jesus and there’s a question if Christianity will survive the efforts of ALL those who want to put an end to it!
A Light and A Voice
But something happens as Saul is on the way to Damascus. Out of no where this light from Heaven shines down on Saul and all those traveling with him. A light so bright it blinds him. The men around him fall to the ground. And Saul hears a Voice. He’s the only one who understands the Voice. The Voice tells him to go on to Damascus and then to wait until he is told what to do next.
Completely stunned, blinded, and confused… Saul has to be guided by the men who were supposed to help him arrest Christians to Damascus where he spends the next 3 days blind, living in complete darkness, without food, and without water.
This man who was so powerful just moments before is now rendered powerless. The one who was leading men to arrest followers of Jesus has to follow the men he brought with him because he can no longer see. The very person who thought believing in a crucified Jesus was not only incredibly misguided, but a threat to faith as he understood it has now encountered the resurrected Christ and realized how wrong he was.
This is an important part of the story… but it’s not the part I want to lean into today. What I want us to lean into is what happens next.
Yes, Lord!
Luke writes…
Acts 9.10: Now there was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, calling, “Ananias!”
Some of you may know Ananias, but you might not. We don’t know much about him. He’s a follower of Jesus. He’s currently living in Damascus. We don’t know if he’s always lived there or if he’s one of the refugees from Jerusalem seeking safety from persecution.
Either way, he’s fully aware of the situation. He knows how dangerous it is to profess faith in Jesus at this moment in time.
And then it happened. I don’t know if he was praying, if he was having his morning coffee, or if it was late at night. But Ananias had a vision of Jesus and Jesus spoke to Ananias. And he called him by name!
And when Ananias saw Jesus, when he heard Jesus call his name, I want you to hear the first words out of his mouth.
“Yes, Lord!” he replied.
Before Ananias even knew what Jesus wanted him to do, he said, “Yes, Lord!”
Some of you are like this. There’s always that one kid in class that when you ask for a volunteer, their hand goes up before they know what the teacher wants them to do. That’s what Ananias does here. Not because he wants to win the favor of his teacher, but because he’s face to face with the resurrected Jesus!
And when Jesus calls him by name, Ananias says the only thing he can say, “Yes, Lord!”
But Lord!
But listen to what Jesus wants him to do… Acts 9.11-16
11 The Lord said, “Go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you get there, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying to me right now. 12 I have shown him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying hands on him so he can see again.”
So… what happens when God asks you to do something uncomfortable?
What happens when you realize what God wants you to do and it just doesn’t make sense? Or it’s difficult. Hard. And to be honest, you don’t want to do it! You might do what Ananias tried to do….
13 “But Lord,” exclaimed Ananias,
Did you see what just happened? His YES LORD turned into a BUT LORD!!!
“BUT LORD… I’ve heard many people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem! 14 And he is authorized by the leading priests to arrest everyone who calls upon your name.”
You can hear Ananias processing the 1s and 0s. Will he say YES Lord or NO Lord? What do you do when what God wants you to do is hard?
15 But the Lord said, “Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. 16 And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.”
Ananias raised his concerns, his questions, but Jesus was resolute in his purpose for him. He told Ananias to “GO!”
So, he went.
Saying Yes Even When It’s Hard
Have you ever said YES LORD to something that was really hard?
If we’re honest, this is really hard for us. This was hard for Ananias. This has always been hard for followers of Jesus. It’s hard because what we want is certainty. We want to know ahead of time how things are going to work out.
There’s a story Mark Thibodeaux tells in his book, God’s Voice Within, about a man that asked Mother Theresa to pray for him to have clarity. She said…
“I’ve never had clarity and certitude. I only have trust. I’ll pray that you trust.”
Mother Theresa
Many times what we want is certainty. What we want is clarity. What we want is to know ahead of time how things are going to turn out. We want a crystal ball.
But this is not the way of Jesus. This is not the way of faith. To live the Christian life is to walk by faith (and maybe even with a little bit of fear) and to be willing to say YES LORD even when what God asks of you is difficult.
Even when the right thing is the hard thing.
And as we end this series today I want to end by challenging you, by challenging myself, to be willing and open and ready to say YES LORD even when the YES is HARD.
And here’s why this is so important…
Uncommon obedience to God leads to extraordinary stories of God’s grace.
Even when the future is unclear, say YES LORD and let go of trying to control the OUTCOME.
Saying YES LORD doesn’t always make sense on paper. Saying YES LORD may mean forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. Saying YES LORD may mean showing kindness to someone who is undeserving. Saying YES LORD may mean doing something hard, uncomfortable, or difficult.
But I want to encourage you to have the courage, the humility, and the faith to say YES LORD and trust God with what happens next.
The Rest of the Story
By the way, here’s the rest of the story. Here’s the extraordinary story of God’s grace as a result of the uncommon obedience by Ananias. Acts 9.17-20
17 So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Instantly something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized. 19 Afterward he ate some food and regained his strength.
Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days. 20 And immediately he began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is indeed the Son of God!”
Because Ananias said YES LORD even when it was hard, terrifying, and the future was entirely uncertain, God used his YES LORD to lead Saul to become a follower of Jesus. And outside of Jesus himself, you might say no one has had a greater impact on the world for Christ than Saul, better known as Paul, who once wrote:
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
— Galatians 2.20
You never know what hangs in the balance when you say YES LORD.
I imagine if Ananias were standing here today he might say to us…
“When Jesus calls your name, let me encourage you to say, YES LORD. You never know what hangs in the balance of your Yes to God. For you. For the one he sends you to help. Or, for the world!”
Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws,
we wait for you;
your name and renown
are the desire of our hearts.
Isaiah 26.8
Want more from this Series… Click here.
