It's Your Turn: Getting Off the Top Golf Version of Following Jesus

I'll play Top Golf with you any day of the week. Real golf? No thank you.

If you've never been, Top Golf is the most American version of the game — we took everything frustrating about golf and stripped it out. Hit a bad ball and there's no walk of shame to go find it; you just grab another one. Sometimes the screen even gives you points for the bad shot. Thirsty? You don't wait on the cart — somebody brings your food right to you. It's comfortable. It's fun. And it is not actually golf.

I've realized a lot of us are living the Top Golf version of following Jesus. We come to church. We sing the songs. We say amen at the right time. We enjoy the message and then we go home. We're in the building, but we're not out on the course. We're auditing Christianity.

This past Sunday we were in Luke 9, and there's a shift there I don't want you to miss. For the first eight chapters of Luke, the story is mostly what God does FOR you — He heals, He teaches, He finds you when you weren't even looking. But in chapter 9, Jesus calls His disciples together, hands them His own authority, and sends them out. The Christian life stops being only about what God does for you and starts becoming, "God, use me." And I'm convinced that's where life to the full actually lives — not in endlessly receiving, but in letting God work through you as His hands and feet.

The second you hear that, a lot of us flinch, because we don't feel ready. Good news: neither were they. These were fishermen. No seminary, no credentials, plenty of unanswered questions and hangups. And Jesus told them to take nothing for the journey — no bag, no backup plan — and just go. You don't have to get ready. You just have to be willing. God needs willing hands a lot more than He needs educated ones.

And here's a relief for anyone who tried once and it flopped: when the disciples came back, Luke records no stories, no names, no highlight reel. It may not have gone great. But that's the point — God doesn't call you to success, He calls you to faithfulness. Even Jesus preached to people who walked away. If He didn't bat a thousand, we won't either. Lean in anyway.

Then comes the moment everything hinges on. A massive crowd, late in the day, hungry, and the disciples have a reasonable plan: send them away. Jesus says four words instead — "You give them something to eat." They've got five loaves and two fish for thousands of people. It's not enough and they know it. But watch what Jesus does: He takes the little bit, blesses it, breaks it, and hands it back to the disciples to pass out. The miracle went through their hands.

Here's the sentence I can't shake: that need in front of you is not an accident, and it is not somebody else's job. The burden God keeps putting on your heart isn't Him showing you a problem to worry about. It's Him handing you the bread. The kid in your house who's drifting. The friend far from God you keep waiting to feel "ready" to invite. The coworker who's hurting. The neighbor going through the divorce you keep meaning to check on. Your instinct is the disciples' instinct — send it away, somebody else will get to it. And God is quietly saying: it's your turn.

Because if you don't, who will? God is powerful beyond measure, but God doesn't carry a cell phone; He's not going to text the encouragement for you. He doesn't have a stack of invite cards. As an old prayer from Teresa of Avila puts it, "Christ has no body now but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours." We are how He reaches the people right in front of us.

And the only reason any of this is even possible is that Jesus said "it's My turn" first. When it came to your sin, your shame, the one problem you could never fix, He didn't pass it off to anybody. He stretched out His arms on a cross and said, in effect, "I've got this." He took your turn so you could be forgiven and free. And now, looking at you with nothing to prove and nothing to earn, He says: now it's yours.

So here's your one step this week. Don't try to solve everything. Just pick the one name that came to mind while you were reading — and do the small thing. Send the text. Make the call. Have the conversation. Hand over your five loaves and watch what God does with them.

You've been in the crowd long enough. It's your turn.

We'd love to have you join us on Sunday.