The following is excerpted from the Sept. 11 sermon, "Jesus and the Last Supper," preached by Pastor Dave Bruskas out of Luke 22:1–23:

As we look at Jesus celebrating his Last Supper with the disciples, we see that Communion is about Jesus and the fact that he loves and forgives us. It’s not about our failings or weaknesses; it’s not something we do to be right with Jesus. When you see things from Jesus’ perspective, you realize that his plan is better than yours, his Word is more reliable than yours, and his love is bigger than yours. He’s eager to share this Communion meal with us because he loves us with a love that’s spelled out in blood, a love that we remember with bread and cup.

Pastor Dave's original plan

I came from a home that I think is pretty typical in our country today. Great parents, loving parents. My mom was Christian in name; she grew up in a religious home and thought that because of that she was a Christian. My dad was raised by a Greek Orthodox father, and his mother was an atheist, and so he was agnostic. And we would go to church twice a year, Christmas and Easter, because my grandma would bribe us. She thought it was important and so we were in it for the food and we would go.

"For some of you, you’re hurting terribly because life hasn’t worked out according to plan. Somewhere the script got changed."

My mom was an alcoholic. She was a binge drinker. And it was New Year’s Eve and she was going to another party and she knew how the night would end, that it would end badly, that she would be sloppy drunk before the night was over. And she began to cry and weep before she even entered the party. A woman met her at the door, took her by the hand, and said, "Betty, I want you to join me and some other ladies. We’re studying Jesus in the Bible." My mom went to the Bible study with them, met Jesus, and then began to drag me and my little brother to church. It wasn’t our favorite thing to do early on. And if that’s where you’re coming from today, you’re here because someone made you be here, church grows on you, alright? So just give it some time, I think it’ll work out for you. We went for several weeks, and one day my dad showed up at the front door ready to go to church. He was never going to go to church, and it was the late ‘70s, so think of John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever, but without any hair. That was my dad. He showed up at the door and said, "If this is the only way I can spend time with my family, I will go to church but I will never believe." He lasted three weeks and he believed.

A boy, praying for a son

As a 13-year-old boy, seventh grade at the time, St. Patrick’s Day, 1979, I met Jesus. I’d always thought that what it meant to be a Christian was you didn’t do certain things that everyone else did, and you did other things that no one else did. And if you did enough of the right things and you avoided enough of the wrong things, that at the end of the day God would tally up your points. If you had enough points, if you had enough gold stars on the chart, he would love you and accept you. Someone sat down with a Bible and explained to me that’s not Christianity. Christianity’s about [how] you could never have enough points to earn God’s favor, but God in love and mercy has sent his Son, Jesus, that we might be righteous through him. And I began to pray a prayer that I don’t think most seventh grade boys pray, the day after I met Jesus. And I really thought it was from God. I began to pray on that day, "Jesus, give me a son that would change the world." And I prayed that prayer up until I was 25. Now, I knew as a seventh-grade boy, some things had to happen for that prayer to come true. First of all, I needed to age a little bit, and then I needed to find a woman, get married, and have children. And those things did work out. I was married to Kara. My oldest daughter, Lisa, was born.

"My plan is to change the world through my Son. Will you be a part of my plan? It’s a good plan."

Kara got pregnant again; we found out through the ultrasound it was going to be a little boy. Our little boy, David Michael, was born, a non-eventful delivery. He came late at night and so after he was born he went into the newborn nursery and Kara and I retired to a semi-private room. I slept on the floor and fell asleep for a few hours. She woke me in the night and said, "David’s not here yet, would you go down to the nursery and check on him, and just make sure everything’s okay?" So I went down to the nursery, he wasn’t there. The nurse there said, "Come with me, Mr. Bruskas, I’ve got some bad news." We walked into the NICU, and there he was. And the poor little guy was just trying to catch his breath. He was laboring in his breathing, he was grayish-blue colored, and they said, "We’re not sure what’s going on with your boy, but something’s happening in a pulmonary way with his heart, with his lungs; he’s not getting oxygenated blood throughout his system, and we need to transport him to the nearest children’s hospital."

Jesus, we had a plan!

My father-in-law gave me a ride behind the ambulance transporting him, and I’ll never forget the conversation I had with Jesus during that ride. For 13 years I’d been praying for this moment. This was Jesus’ plan for my life, that he would give me a son, and through that son the world would be different, the world would be changed for him. And as we made that drive to the children’s hospital, I was hurt and I was angry and I said, "Jesus, you must have the wrong plan. Remember, we had a plan! Jesus, you must have the wrong guy. We’re not on the same page anymore. What’s happening here? God, I don’t understand this. Father, I don’t get what’s going on." And I remember in the quietness of my heart, the way the Father spoke, he said, "My plan is to change the world through my Son. Will you be a part of my plan? It’s a good plan."

Our best-laid plans

I don’t know where you’re coming from today. For some of you, you’re hurting terribly because life hasn’t worked out according to plan. Somewhere the script got changed.

Maybe you always wanted a family.

Maybe you desired a family with lots of kids, and the kids are there, but there’s no dad, or there’s no mom, you’re a single parent. It’s all you can do to summon the energy to get your kids taken care of and truth be told, Jesus seems distant and you feel let down by Jesus.

Maybe you always wanted to be married.

Maybe you’re single and it’s beyond the timeline that you laid out for yourself to be single. Maybe you’re single, but you once were married to a person that you thought would be along your side the rest of your life, and that person was unfaithful, and that person betrayed you, and that person is now gone. And you’re hurting because Jesus really hasn’t followed your script. And the result is there’s a strain in your relationship with Jesus.

Maybe you had a good financial plan.

Maybe you had a good financial plan in place, and that plan’s a wreck. That’s about true of all of us now, isn’t it? Money set aside so that you could be generous and you could have margin in your life so you could give to the cause of Jesus, some money set aside for retirement, and you’ve lost everything in this great recession and you’re back to zero and now you don’t have a job, and you feel that somewhere along the line Jesus sold you out.

Maybe it’s a health issue.

Maybe you did everything right according to the books to be healthy, and you have cancer, you’re not well, it’s a struggle for you just to have energy to do basic things day in and day out, and you feel let down by Jesus.

Maybe you’re not a Christian.

And I love to talk to people who aren’t Christians yet. The people who aren’t Christians yet, as it pertains to God, always have action plans, "I’m going to do this. I’m going to get my life together. I’m going to start going to church. I’m going to read my Bible and if I stick with it and stay with it long enough, eventually I’ll come to know Jesus." It’s not an effective plan, according to Jesus. It’s really a plan that will lead you to hell and separation from Jesus.

His plan is good

There’s good news today: He has a plan! And his plan is good and his plan isn’t one-dimensional and finite like yours because all you can really do with your plan is figure out your best days. You can only control the things you can control. So not only can you not control outside influences, you don’t have any sort of capacity to control evil. But God’s plan is a good plan. God’s plan takes the best shot from his archenemy, Satan, infiltrating the inner circle of Jesus, having Judas betray Jesus and hand him over for the purpose of the King being assassinated. And God doesn’t do evil, as Pastor Mark said; he uses evil. God has a plan. Jesus has a plan. My hope today is that you’ll change your perspective, you’ll reverse your default mode of looking at your plan, and you’ll begin to understand who you are in Jesus’ plan because he loves you. And his plan is good. Dave Bruskas is an executive elder at Mars Hill. You can find teaching from Pastor Dave in the Mars Hill Media Library. This year, he also wrote the Parenting Daughters series here on the blog. This Sunday, Pastor Mark will be back in the pulpit with Luke part 90, "Jesus and True Greatness."