From Him, Through Him, To Him: The Surrender of the Disciple

The God We Cannot Contain

There is a moment — and maybe you know exactly what I am talking about — when you step outside on a clear winter night, look up at the sky, and the stars just stop you cold. You cannot move. You cannot speak. You just stand there, small and undone, staring at something so vast that your mind simply cannot hold it all at once. That feeling — that holy helplessness — is precisely what the Apostle Paul is reaching for when he arrives at the end of Romans chapter eleven.

Now, you have to understand what Paul has just been through. He has spent eleven chapters wrestling with some of the deepest questions any human being has ever thought about — the nature of sin, the gift of grace, the mystery of Israel's rejection and eventual redemption, the sovereignty of God over all of human history. Eleven chapters of hard, careful, Spirit-breathed theological thinking. And when he finally arrives at the end of all that — when he reaches the conclusion of his argument — he does not write a summary. He does not give us a tidy bullet-pointed list of takeaways. He writes a doxology.

Listen to these words from Romans 11, verses 33 through 36:

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen."

Paul does not land the plane. He looks out the window, realizes the sky has no floor, and the only thing left to do is worship.

Today is Trinity Sunday. And I want to say something clearly and directly right from the beginning — Trinity Sunday is not a theology lecture dressed up in vestments. It is not a day to memorize the diagram of three persons and one essence and then feel satisfied that we have done our doctrinal homework and can move on. Trinity Sunday is an invitation. It is a holy summons to stand before the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and be genuinely undone by what we cannot fully contain.

Saint Augustine of Hippo, writing in the fourth century, opened his Confessions with one of the most honest sentences any human being has ever committed to parchment. He said: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Augustine was one of the sharpest minds in the history of the Church. He had studied every philosophy. He had chased every pleasure and every ambition. He had tried to satisfy the deep, aching hunger inside him with everything the world had to offer — and none of it worked. Because the hunger inside every human soul is shaped exactly like God. Only God fills it.

That restlessness Augustine describes — that is not a disease to be cured. That is the very thing God uses to draw us home to Himself. And this Trinity Sunday, I want us to sit in that holy restlessness for just a moment. I want us to let the greatness of God be genuinely great again in our hearts.

Because here is a real danger for those of us who have been in the Church for many years. The mystery can become familiar. The doxology can become routine. We can hear "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" and feel absolutely nothing — not because the words are not true, but because we have stopped letting them actually land on us. We have slowly, quietly, almost without noticing it, inoculated ourselves against wonder.

But Paul does not let us do that here. He says — look at the depth. Look at the riches. Look at how unsearchable His judgments are, how inscrutable His ways. The God who holds all of history in His hands is not a doctrine you master. He is a Person — three Persons in one Being — who lovingly, persistently, graciously masters you.

And then Paul gives us three small words that are going to carry us through everything else this morning. From Him. Through Him. To Him. That is the shape of all reality. That is the shape of true discipleship. And that is the shape of a life fully surrendered to the Triune God. Let us go there together.

From Him — He Is Our Source

The first word is "from." From Him are all things.

This is where everything begins — not with us, not with our effort, not with our good intentions or our decision to show up this morning, but with God Himself. He is the source. He is the origin. He is the fountain from which everything that truly matters flows.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent speaks to this plainly and powerfully. On the subject of God as Creator, it teaches that God is the first and universal cause of all things — that nothing exists, nothing moves, nothing lives except by His originating will and His sustaining power. Nothing. Not the galaxies. Not the grass. Not the breath in your lungs right now as you sit in this pew. Every single thing comes from Him. He is the source of all sources.

Now — that is a beautiful truth when we are talking about creation in the grand, cosmic sense. But I want to bring it much closer to home than that. I want to ask you a direct question, and I want you to sit with it honestly rather than answering it too quickly.

Does your daily life actually start with God?

Not — do you believe theologically that God is the source of all things? I expect most of you would say yes to that. I believe most of you mean it. But I am asking something more specific and more uncomfortable than a theological statement. When you wake up in the morning and begin to plan your day — who are you actually planning it for? When you face a significant decision about your family, your finances, your future — where does that decision genuinely originate? Does it flow from God, sought in prayer, measured against His Word, submitted to His lordship? Or does it flow from your own desires, your own fears, your own ambition — with perhaps a brief prayer tacked on at the end, asking Him to bless what you have already decided you want?

I say this in love, but I say it plainly: many of us have learned to live the Christian life backwards. We bring God our plans and ask Him to put His signature on them. When what He is actually calling us to do is bring Him our emptiness and let Him fill it with His own purposes.

Saint Francis of Assisi understood this in a way that still arrests me every time I think about it. He was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant — a young man with every advantage, every comfort, every reasonable excuse to live for himself. And then God broke him open. And what came out of that breaking was one of the most radical acts of surrender the Church has ever witnessed. He stood before the bishop of Assisi, stripped off his fine clothes in the public square, handed them back to his earthly father, and declared — in substance — I have nothing left from myself. Everything I am and everything I have must now come from my Father in heaven alone.

He wrote these words that shaped his entire community: "Let us refer all good to the Lord God Almighty and Most High, acknowledge that every good is His, and thank Him from whom all good comes." Every good. Not most goods. Not the spiritual goods, while we quietly keep the practical and comfortable ones for ourselves. Every good comes from Him.

This is what it actually means to live "from Him" as a disciple of Jesus Christ. It means your life is not self-generated. Your calling is not self-appointed. Your strength is not self-produced. You are not the originating point of anything that truly and eternally matters. He is.

And I understand — I genuinely understand — that this can feel threatening. We live in a world that applauds self-sufficiency and rewards personal initiative. There is nothing wrong with responsibility and honest hard work. But the disciple of Jesus Christ must hold all of that in a very specific and non-negotiable order. God first. God as source. God as the one from whom the whole project of our life must flow before anything else.

When Paul writes "from him are all things," he is not simply making a philosophical observation for our intellectual appreciation. He is issuing a challenge to every person in this room. Is He truly your source? Not just on Sunday morning? Not just in a crisis when you have exhausted every other option? But on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon when everything seems manageable and you feel perfectly capable of handling things on your own?

That is where discipleship is actually forged or quietly abandoned. Not in the dramatic moments. In the ordinary ones. In the Tuesday afternoons.

Through Him — He Is Our Power

The second word is "through." Through Him are all things.

If "from Him" deals with where our life originates, "through Him" deals with how our life continues. Not just where we begin, but the power by which we move forward. And this is where the Great Commission becomes absolutely essential to what Paul is saying.

Look with me at Matthew chapter 28, verse 18. Before Jesus gives the command — before He says the word "go" — He says something we absolutely must not rush past: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

All authority. In heaven. On earth. There is no square inch of creation, no corner of human history, no moment of personal suffering or apparent triumph, no broken relationship, no impossible situation, no depth of darkness — that falls outside the reach of His authority. He holds all of it.

And then — only then — He says go. Make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe everything I have commanded you.

The Great Commission is not a task handed to self-sufficient, capable, well-organized people who need a little divine encouragement along the way. It is a mandate given to people who have been completely repositioned under His authority — people whose only real power is derived power, borrowed power, power that flows through them rather than from them. The Great Commission only makes sense to someone who understands that they are a conduit, not a source. A channel, not a reservoir.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux — that young Carmelite nun from Normandy who died at only twenty-four years old — understood this in a way that genuinely humbles me. She was not a great intellectual. She was not a powerful preacher. She did not possess extraordinary gifts that set her apart from ordinary Christians. She could not accomplish the dramatic things she sometimes dreamed of doing for God. And when she looked squarely at her own smallness, she did not respond by trying harder to manufacture greatness she did not have. Instead, she developed what she called her little way — a path of radical, deliberate, daily dependence on God's strength rather than her own.

She wrote these words in her autobiography: "I have always wanted to be a saint. Alas! I have always noticed that when I compare myself to the saints, there is between them and me the same difference that exists between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and an obscure grain of sand trampled underfoot by passersby. Instead of becoming discouraged, I said to myself: God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness."

That is not false modesty. That is not low self-esteem dressed up in the language of faith. That is clear-eyed, courageous recognition that the power to live for God must come through God — and that God is not embarrassed to work through small, ordinary, fully surrendered people. In fact, He seems to prefer it.

Now here is the question that presses on each of us today. How often do we attempt to live the Christian life entirely on our own power? How often do we treat prayer as a formality to be completed rather than a lifeline to be depended on? How often do we open Scripture out of obligation rather than genuine hunger? How often do we step out to serve, to give, to evangelize, to disciple someone — and we do it in our own energy, our own cleverness, our own social ease — and then we wonder why we feel depleted and the fruit seems thin and short-lived?

Paul says through Him are all things. Every genuinely good thing you will ever do as a disciple of Jesus Christ must flow through His power, under His authority, by the working of His Spirit. You are the instrument. He is the hand that holds it and moves it.

And hear me — that is not diminishing. That is the most liberating truth in the world. Because it means the lasting success of your discipleship does not ultimately rest on you. It rests on Him. And He does not fail. He does not run out of strength. He does not have bad days where His authority slips a little.

The only real question is whether you are willing to stay connected to the source. Whether you are willing to pray before you speak. To listen before you act. To lay down your strategy before you deploy it. To do everything through Him rather than alongside Him as a casual reference point.

To Him — He Is Our Glory

And now we come to the third word. And this is the sharpest edge of the three. To Him are all things.

If "from Him" is about our source and "through Him" is about our power, then "to Him" is about our destination. The goal. The endpoint. The reason the whole thing exists. And Paul says it without softening it at all — to Him be glory forever.

Matthew 28 bears this out in a way that we sometimes completely miss. Look at the Great Commission one more time. Jesus says go and make disciples, baptizing them in whose name? His name — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe whose commands? His commands. And at the end of the age, when all of this is finished and the last disciple has been made and the last nation has heard the gospel — what will have been accomplished? His kingdom. His glory. His name exalted among every people and every tongue on the face of the earth.

The Great Commission is not ultimately about us. It is not about growing our numbers or increasing our parish's reputation in the community. It is not fundamentally about the deep personal satisfaction we feel when we see someone come to faith — though that satisfaction is real and good. All of those things may be genuinely true and genuinely good in their proper place. But they must never become the point. The point is that the name of the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is glorified in every corner of His creation. That is where all of history is heading. To Him.

Thomas à Kempis wrote in the Imitation of Christ — a book that has shaped more Christian disciples than almost any other work outside of Scripture itself — these piercing, searching words: "What does it profit you to enter into deep discussion concerning the Holy Trinity, if you lack humility, and be thus displeasing to the Trinity?"

Sit with that for a moment. What does it profit you to know all the right things about the Trinity — to recite every article of the Creed with perfect precision, to pass every theology examination with flying colors — if you lack the humility to lay yourself down and genuinely live for His glory alone?

That is the sharpest question of Trinity Sunday. Not merely — do you know the doctrine? But — do you actually live for His glory? Really and practically? In your home, behind closed doors? In your relationships when no one is watching to give you credit? In the way you steward your money and your time and your energy and your influence?

When you serve the poor — is it because you love His name and burn to see His kingdom come, or is there a quiet part of you that needs to feel like a generous, admirable person? When you share your faith — is it because you genuinely ache to see His glory known among the lost, or is there a layer underneath where you want to feel like you are doing your part? I am not asking these questions to manufacture guilt or to make you feel small. I am asking them because every one of us — without a single exception, including the person preaching to you right now — carries a deep and subtle tendency to drift from "to Him" toward "to me." It is the oldest temptation in human history. It goes all the way back to the garden. And it shows up most insidiously not in open rebellion but in the hearts of sincere, dedicated, faithful followers of Jesus who have slowly let their own comfort and reputation creep toward the center of things.

Thomas à Kempis also wrote: "He that knoweth himself well is vile in his own sight, and taketh no delight in the praises of men." That is not self-hatred. That is not spiritual depression. That is absolute, liberating clarity. When you see God as He truly is — when the full weight of the glory of the Trinity actually breaks through your defenses and lands on your heart — living for your own glory begins to look as genuinely absurd as choosing to stare at a candle when the sun is right there.

The antidote to self-glory is not, ultimately, to try harder to be selfless. Gritting your teeth at your own pride does not cure your pride. The antidote is to fall deeper in love with His glory. To let Him be so magnificent in your eyes that your own reputation genuinely starts to matter less and less. Because when you truly see how worthy He is — when Romans 11:33-36 stops being a familiar passage and starts being a living reality — the surrender comes not as a crushing defeat but as the deepest relief you have ever known.

To Him are all things. Your life. Your ministry. Your family. Your seasons of fruitfulness and your seasons of suffering. Your successes and your failures and everything in between. All of it must be aimed — consciously, deliberately, daily — at His glory alone. That is the destination. That is what the disciples we are called to make are being formed toward. And the person in any room who is most genuinely living "to Him" is not the most joyless or the most burdened. They are the most free.

The Cost and the Call

And so we arrive at the end of the road this morning. And before I release you, I want to be completely honest with you about what this actually costs.

It costs everything.

Living from Him means dying to self-sufficiency. Living through Him means dying to self-reliance. Living to Him means dying to self-glory. And Paul does not let us escape the weight of that. In the very next chapter — Romans chapter 12, verse 1 — immediately following his soaring doxology — he writes these words:

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

A living sacrifice. That is the image Paul reaches for. Not a dead sacrifice, offered once, finished, done with. A living one. Which means every single day, you climb back onto the altar. Every morning, you present yourself again. Every time your flesh wants to reclaim its territory, every time your pride wants its moment in the light, every time your fear whispers that full surrender is too costly and too risky — you lay it down again. You choose the altar again.

And notice — Paul does not appeal to us out of guilt or obligation. He appeals to us by the mercies of God. Because of what He has done. Because of who He is — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God from whom and through whom and to whom are all things — therefore. The doxology of Romans 11 is not beautiful poetry attached to a severe demand. It is the very foundation of the call. You cannot sustain a life of genuine surrender to someone you do not find magnificent. Duty will carry you only so far — and then it drops you, exhausted and resentful, by the side of the road.

But when you have truly been undone by the greatness and the mercy and the beauty of the Triune God — when Romans 11:33-36 stops being a passage you know and starts being a reality that knows you — the surrender does not feel like loss. It feels like the most natural thing in the world. It feels like coming home.

Augustine knew this from the inside. After all his restless wandering, after all his striving and searching and running from the very God who was pursuing him, he wrote with the clarity of a man who had finally stopped fighting: our heart is restless, until it reposes in Thee. And when he finally rested — when he finally stopped fleeing and surrendered to the God who had been chasing him with grace all along — he did not describe it as defeat. He described it as peace. The deep, settled, unshakeable peace of a man who had finally stopped swimming against the current and let it carry him all the way home.

That is what I am inviting you into this Trinity Sunday. Not just a beautiful homily that fades before the week is out. Not just a moment of theological appreciation for a great mystery. But a genuine, personal reckoning with the God who is the source, the power, and the eternal goal of all things — and a genuine, eyes-open decision about whether your life is truly going to be organized around Him or quietly, stubbornly around yourself.

I will not soften the cost for you, because I respect you too much to hand you a cheaper gospel than the one Jesus actually preached. He said take up your cross and follow me. He meant it without qualification. There will be relationships that resist your surrender and push back hard. There will be habits and comforts and small kingdoms you have built that will not go quietly. There will be moments when living for His glory costs you something you genuinely did not want to give up — something that will hurt when it goes. That is real. That is the cross. And it is not optional for the disciple.

But the freedom that waits on the other side of that surrender — the freedom of a life fully from Him, fully through Him, fully to Him — is the only freedom worth possessing. Because every other freedom is simply another chain that has learned to call itself a choice.

From Him. Through Him. To Him. Three words. One God. One call. One life offered as a living sacrifice to the one from whom and through whom and to whom all things exist.

To Him be glory forever.- F.D.