This Is My Year: Glory in the Cross, Love in the Rubble

What looks weak is actually God’s power

When Jesus pointed to the cross as his glory he turned our expectations upside down. We expect glory to look glossy, victorious, and unassailable—crowns, triumphal entries, bestseller lists. Instead, the Gospel shows a God who is glorified through humiliation. In John 13 and the surrounding Gospel material, Jesus calls the moment of his betrayal and crucifixion the very time he is glorified. That is hard to swallow. It forces us to admit that God’s way of fixing the world often runs counter to every human plan we've cherished: what looks shameful can be saving; what looks weak can be decisive. When we confess that, it means our metrics change. We stop sizing success by applause and start looking for signs of sacrificial love and painful humility.

This changes how we think about our own goals for a year or a decade. Strategic plans, big buildings, impressive programs—these can be fine tools when held lightly. But they are worthless if they distract us from the cross-shaped way of Jesus. The sermon reminded us that no amount of human cleverness could fix what the cross accomplishes. So when we sketch out our hopes for the church or for our lives, we do it in the shadow of a tree that looks like a loser: a rough beam where death became entry into life. That paradox becomes a daily correction to our ambitions and a balm for our pride.

Love as the unmistakable badge of discipleship

One of the clearest lines from John 13 is that people will know we follow Jesus by how we love each other. That claim is neither sentimental nor optional. It’s a public, visible testimony. If the cross is God’s glory, then the cross-shaped love—the kind that gives up convenience, time, and preference—is the mark that makes the cross believable to others. We can roll our eyes at that and scramble for better marketing, or we can let our relationships speak for Christ. The sermon pressed us to notice the difference between liking people who comfort us and loving people at cost to ourselves. Loving like Jesus pulls us out of comfort zones and into messy, costly commitments.

This kind of love rewires our decision-making. We might be tempted to prioritize growth numbers, shiny programs, or the next big project. But the question becomes: are our plans producing people who sacrifice for one another? Are we becoming a place where strangers are cared for without strings attached? True discipleship shows itself in ordinary patterns—sticking with someone through hard seasons, forgiving when it’s humiliating, choosing the other’s good over our ease. That is the witness that creates curiosity, not clever tactics.

When growth means growing in love first

Most of us want things to flourish. We want our friendships to deepen, our church to multiply, our neighborhoods to be kinder. But the sermon turned us back to a crucial priority: quantitative growth is next to meaningless unless it follows qualitative growth in love. A community can get big while getting shallow. That kind of growth can make us proud and brittle. What matters is depth—are we learning to bear one another’s burdens, to serve without prospect of reward, to forgive when wounds are fresh? That kind of inward transformation is what sustains fruitfulness over time.

If we treat growth like a business goal we risk producing more spectacle than substance. In contrast, when we measure growth by the increase of genuine cross-shaped love, the results look different. We count long-term faithfulness, sacrificial care, and the messy reconciliation that follows conflict. Those things don’t show up on a quarterly report, but they produce people who stay, who trust, who point others to Christ because they’ve actually experienced the love he modeled. The sermon nudged us away from short-term gain toward the slow work of forming people who love sacrificially.

Crossing differences as a practice of grace

Jesus didn’t gather a bunch of lookalikes. His circle included zealots, tax collectors, fishermen—people who naturally would have clashed. That example is a rebuke to the comfortable sameness we often create. Loving across racial, generational, and ideological boundaries is not merely admirable; it’s essential to reflecting the nature of the cross. When we only cluster around people who affirm our tastes and politics, we create an echo chamber, not a signpost to Jesus. The sermon named this plainly: Christian love must be willing to cross difference, not reinforce it.

Practically, this means doing hard things: speaking truth in love to someone whose background or convictions make the truth feel dangerous; choosing to attend events and conversations where we feel out of place; investing time in relationships that produce no immediate benefit for us. Those decisions look small and sometimes foolish, but they are the live demonstrations of a God who entered the world as one who was weak and rejected. We’re not being told to be agreeable for its own sake; we’re being asked to practice a love that is costly and generous. Over time, those small acts build a community that actually attracts others because it’s unlike the transactional connections people usually get.

What we must stop idolizing in our plans

One of the more piercing parts of the message was the warning about misplaced confidence in our plans. Strategic gifts are useful—someone who can plot a course and think ahead is a blessing. But when strategy becomes our idol, it blinds us to the way God works. The cross shows that God’s truest move won’t always be replicated by our best-laid schemes. That doesn’t make planning sinful; it makes it subordinate. We learn to plan from a posture of dependency and humility, not self-assurance. That shift reorients how we talk about goals, budgets, and building projects.

So what do we stop doing? We stop pretending that the size of our budget equals spiritual success. We stop treating programs as ends in themselves. We stop assuming that comfort and cultural approval are signs of God’s favor. Replacing these idols doesn’t leave us aimless; it frees us to pursue projects that actually serve sacrificial love. When plans flow from people who are learning to die to themselves for others, the plans are more likely to be faithful and less likely to be proud.

Monday mornings, small practices that prove the sermon true

Picture Monday morning, when the laundry is piled, the kids are cranky, and an awkward conversation with a neighbor waits at the mailbox. The big theological claim—that glory looks like a cross—becomes practical here. The sermon gave us one concrete truth to hold for moments like this: showing up is often the cross-shaped act. It doesn’t always require a grand sacrifice; sometimes it requires choosing patience, taking a phone call when our schedule is tight, or sitting through a hard talk without needing to win. Those are the practices where the kind of love Jesus praised takes shape.

Start there. Notice one small, costly choice you can make this week: a phone call you avoid, a reconciliation you’ve postponed, an extra hour to help someone whose life is disorderly. Bring that thing to God as it is—grumbling, reluctant, imperfect—and commit to one tangible act. The cross reshapes us through countless ordinary choices, not just dramatic gestures. That’s where the work begins: in the ordinary, humble moments that reveal whether we have him in us and whether his glory is being reflected in our ordinary love.