One of the quickest ways to become discouraged in ministry is to take responsibility for something God never asked you to carry.
I’ve watched pastors wear themselves out because people wouldn’t change. I’ve watched parents blame themselves for every decision their adult children made. I’ve seen husbands and wives become frustrated because the other person refused to do their part.
The question isn’t whether that happens. It does.
The real question is, what does God expect from us when it does?
Paul gives us a powerful answer in Ephesians.
Before he talks about marriage, parenting, work, or spiritual warfare, he reminds us who we are in Christ. Then he tells us to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
That phrase is the foundation for every relationship.
Why do I choose humility?
Why do I forgive?
Why do I serve?
Not because people always deserve it. Not because it always works out the way I hoped.
I do it because Jesus is worthy of my obedience.
That’s an important distinction, especially if you’re leading people.
Too many of us evaluate our obedience by the results. If people respond well, we think we were successful. If they don’t, we wonder if we failed.
But that’s not how God measures faithfulness.
Think about parenting.
God tells children to obey their parents while they’re in the home and to honor them as adults. Parents are told to raise their children in the instruction of the Lord without crushing their spirit.
That’s God’s design.
But every parent knows children have something called free will. You can do your job faithfully, and they still have choices to make.
The same is true in marriage.
The same is true in ministry.
The same is true in the workplace.
You can’t make another person obey God. You can’t make someone repent. You can’t make someone forgive. You can’t make someone grow.
Only God changes hearts.
Our responsibility is different.
There is God’s part.
There is their part.
Then there is my part.
Life gets confusing when I start trying to do someone else’s job.
I can’t do God’s part.
I can’t do another person’s part.
But I can do mine.
That truth has brought freedom to a lot of people over the years.
It doesn’t remove the pain. We still grieve when people make destructive choices. We still pray for prodigals. We still fight for marriages. We still pursue people who are drifting.
But we stop carrying a weight God never asked us to carry.
We simply ask, “Lord, what have You asked me to do?”
Then we do it.
Out of reverence for Christ.
That mindset changes the way we lead.
Every one of us was handed a different story. Some grew up in healthy homes. Others didn’t. Some came to Christ with strong examples of marriage and family. Others had no idea what God’s design even looked like.
That’s one of the reasons God gave us the church.
The church isn’t just a place where we attend services. It’s God’s family. It’s where spiritual fathers and mothers help younger believers see what following Jesus actually looks like. We learn new patterns because many of the old ones weren’t healthy.
We don’t have to repeat what we were handed.
In Christ, we can learn a better way.
That doesn’t happen overnight.
We’ll still have conflict. We’ll still fail. We’ll still have days when our selfishness gets the better of us.
But little by little, Jesus changes us.
We learn to handle conflict instead of avoiding it.
We learn perseverance instead of quitting.
We learn humility instead of demanding our own way.
That’s what spiritual maturity looks like.
As leaders, it’s easy to become outcome-driven. We want healthy families, growing churches, restored marriages, and people who follow Jesus wholeheartedly.
Those are good desires.
But our peace can’t depend on everyone else making the right choices.
Our peace comes from knowing we’ve been faithful with what God entrusted to us.
At the end of the day, I can’t stand before God and answer for someone else’s obedience.
I can only answer for mine.
So keep praying.
Keep loving people.
Keep telling the truth.
Keep investing in those God has placed in front of you.
And leave the results where they’ve always belonged—in God’s hands.
Our job has never been to control the outcome.
Our job is simply to do our part.
You can watch the full sermon below:
