People are often creatures of comfort. It seems that by default our desire is to be in the place that is most comfortable for us, and this has been one of my concerns for us as a church the longer we are together. For much of the history of RVC we were not in a position to ever be comfortable. Rather, for much of our history we were forced to be uncomfortable—if RVC was going to make we had to be wiling to be uncomfortable in how we served, in how we gave, in how we sacrificed, in how we invited others to the church.
However over time, as God has graciously allowed RVC to continue, there has become an increasing amount of opportunity for us to get comfortable. Currently as a church there are enough of us around for the church to survive—we have money in the bank, many of us have found a groove in where we serve, we all kind of know what to expect. All of this can make us incredibly comfortable. As we participate in Holy Week let me invite you to get uncomfortable and remember our Lord and how uncomfortable he became for us.
It was our Lord who left the comforts of Heaven to come to us, to be born of a woman in the most uncomfortable of settings. It was our Lord who lived an uncomfortable life of service often serving those who ridiculed him. It was our Lord who didn’t have the comforts of a place to lay his head. It was our Lord who did the hard work of discipleship that was often filled with one uncomfortable conversation after another. It was our Lord who even was willing to die the most uncomfortable death as he took on the wrath of God in our place so that we would be forgiven of our sin.
Friends, because of our Lord and our faith we have in him, yes, one day our lives will be filled with comfort as we enter into eternal life, but that day has yet to come. The call that Jesus gives us in this life is to follow him in uncomfortable settings. This Holy Week may we as a church not settle for comfort but, for the glory of Jesus, get uncomfortable so that one day many others in our city and around the world would know Christ’s comfort.