Trust

Here.

By the way, as one who has been trying to follow the God made known in Jesus Christ for nearly forty years, let me say it can be hard. That's because God asks us to do things we don't want to do.

Even centuries before Jesus was born on earth, Abraham was asked to crucify his old comfortable life, going to a land he didn't know, to fulfill the purposes of God.

Today, Jesus calls us to follow Him in lives of daily trust, repentance, and renewal, submitting to the crucifixion of the old self, including our own preferences, so that our new selves--our God selves, the selves God designed us to be--can rise and live, today and in eternity.

The risen Jesus, in a sense, warned us all about how He might lead us into circumstances and to places over which we have no control, surrounded by people who, on this earth, may control or even harm us, when He told Peter (foretelling Peter's later imprisonment and death for his faith in Christ): "Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." (John 21:18)

Praying, meaning, and accepting it when we pray, "Thy will be done" is the hardest part of the Christian life. At least it has been for me.

And it's harder today than it's ever been since the Holy Spirit transformed this atheist into a believer.

Trust--what's also called faith--is foreign to my nature, foreign to human nature, and anyone who enrolls in the school of trust in Christ will, if they take their studies seriously, endure difficulties they wouldn't otherwise experience in life. But they will also experience great joys and the knowledge that, even when we don't feel it, the risen Christ is with us always.

I identify with Peter from an earlier point in John's gospel, well before Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. There, Jesus has just been rejected with cutting, violent words, by people who had believed in Him. (They had followed Jesus for utilitarian motives, not for new lives with God, but to get a few goodies on this earth. Jesus had made clear that He is no perfectly coiffed televangelist, promising smooth and happy lives to people who follow the rules of cheerfulness and positive thinking. Jesus came into the world not to give us what we want, but what we need, life with God. And that only comes to those willing to share in Christ's cross, the crucifixion of the old self with all its sin and sinful desires, and His resurrection, confessing their sin and turning away from dependence on anything other than Jesus Christ, true God and true man, alone.) Jesus turned to the twelve who had followed Him from the beginning and asked them if they too didn't want to abandon Him. Peter responded: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." (John 6:6)

Jesus is still God in the flesh. No matter the detours, imagined or real. No matter what He calls on us to pick up or leave behind. But as an old praise song, its lyrics firmly rooted in the Bible's witness about Jesus, puts it:

There's no other way
No price that I could pay
Simply to the cross I cling
This is all I need
This is all I plead That His blood was shed for me Lead me to the cross of Jesus

The Jesus of cross and empty tomb is the One I seek to and often fitfully, sometimes half-heartedly trust, sometimes with a heart shattered from disappointment that God's ways are not my ways, sometimes with a heart uplifted because His grace receives me and keeps loving me even when I'm most conscious of my unworthiness, often with resounding and sin-filled failure on my part.

Despite the detours, the Holy Spirit helps me to trust the God Who is faithful even when I'm not.

Help me to trust more, Lord. Help me to follow even when I don't understand. There is nowhere else to go. Amen and amen.

 

Want Faith? Let Yourself Catch Grace

The Bible teaches that we come to a saving faith in the God revealed through Jesus Christ only by the power of the Holy Spirit. "No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit," Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:3.

Faith in anyone but ourselves or in what we can control is foreign to human nature. And belief in the witness given by the apostles and other first Christians that, despite their own doubts, they could vouch with their lives that Jesus Christ, sinless God-in-the-flesh, not only died an undeserved death on a cross, but also rose from the dead, is also foreign to our natures.

Unless we're open to the ministry of the Holy Spirit--Who uses the witnesses of ordinary human beings to convict us of sin and convince us of the grace available to all sinners who turn from sin and believe in Christ as their only God and hope--the Spirit cannot create faith within us.

The refusal to even be willing in our imperfect human ways to believe in the Holy Spirit's proclamation of the God Who made us, Who hates sin, and Who, because He loves sinners, gives us a way to escape the consequences of sin--death and eternal separation from God--is epidemic in the Church and in society.

Bishop John Bradosky of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) recently wrote insightfully:

In the Atlantic Monthly, columnist Jonathan Rauch writes that America has made “a major civilization advance” in recent years. Rauch, an atheist, is thrilled about a phenomenon he calls apatheism (“apathetic theism”). “It’s not that people don’t believe in God anymore,” Rauch writes, “the majority will still say they believe. ... The faithful in America haven’t been putting much thought or effort into their faith. They’re looking for comfort and reassurance, not for a God who asks anything of them. Apathetic theists don’t care about their own religion and care even less about the faith of others.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks noticed a trend a few years ago and coined the term flexidoxy (“flexible beliefs”).

“Flexidoxy describes the form of religion practiced by many educated young Americans, as opposed to orthodoxy. Basically, it means that people have become flexible in their belief system and look at religion as a giant smorgasbord from which they can pick and choose the beliefs that most suit them. They become the center of their own faith and adapt it to what they see as important.”

Both apathetic theism and flexidoxy may well be the consequence and by-product of the church when it avoids the Holy Spirit, on one hand, or abuses it on the other. Apathetic theism and flexidoxy are grounded in the power of popularity and political correctness but not the power of the Holy Spirit.

Into this world, the Church must bring to bear what it alone possesses and is called to proclaim, the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the power and work of the Holy Spirit.

Nobody can "prove" the truth of the Christian proclamation: 

• the truth that human beings are born in a condition of separation from God called sin; 
• the truth that, imprisoned by this condition, we inevitably commit sins and just as inevitably, even what seems like altruistic acts on our parts are tinged with selfishness and self-will; 
• the truth that God is unwilling to let us to go to hell, the fate we deserve, without a fight; 
• the truth that because of God's love for us, He sent Jesus into the world; 
• the truth that Jesus died, taking our punishment for sin, and rose from the dead to offer new life that begins here and now even as we remain imperfect and extends into eternity where we will live in perfect fellowship with God and others saved by the grace given to all who believe in Christ.

No argument for these truths will convince anyone. But when we leave ourselves open to the witness the Bible offers about God and what God has done in Jesus Christ, something happens to us that subordinates (but does not eliminate) our intellects, our wills, and our emotions.

Put simply, we come to believe in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:1, in the New Testament, says: "...Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen

I once was an atheist. I thought the Bible was a book written by human beings with their ideas about God, not, as I've come to believe that the Bible was inspired by God presented to human beings to save us. I thought that faith in Christ was for the pathetic. I thought that the message about Jesus, the gospel, was implausible.

But when I allowed myself to be open to Christ and to the ministry of the Holy Spirit operating in the Bible, in the fellowship of the Church, in the sermons of pastors, in the writings of Christians over the past twenty centuries, and in Holy Communion, even though I couldn't understand how Jesus' body and blood could be present in the bread and the wine or how a sinner like me could be forgiven by Christ, something happened to me. I came to believe in Jesus.

In the intervening thirty-seven years, my faith has been strong some times, weak at others. But the Holy Spirit has used means like those I mentioned above to shore up my faith, convict me of sins and so, convict me of my need for Christ, to convince me that Christ's death and resurrection were done for all sinners, including me, and that through Jesus, I really am forgiven and saved to live with and to live for God for eternity. 

Whether you're an atheist who stands outside the Church, as I once did, or a non-believing churchgoer like so many are today, if you want to have a faith that can change and shape your life and if you want the capacity to leave behind the delusion that you as a created being don't need your creator, I can assure you that you can have faith that changes this life and the one to come!

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you:

• In the Bible
• In the fellowship of Christians who honestly admit their own imperfections and relish the perfection and grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ
• In the prayers you offer to God in Jesus' Name, prayers in which you should honestly share your doubts, but also your desire to believe
• In listening to the preached Word
• In joining convicted and convinced Christians in serving others in Jesus' Name
• In being connected with a Church whose pastor (or pastors) and members evidence true belief in the God of the Bible, who reverence the Bible as God's perfect, inspired Word for the human race
• In the Sacrament of Holy Communion, during the receiving of which you earnestly pray, "I don't know how Your body and blood and Your forgiveness can be in bread and wine, Lord, but I ask you to help me to trust that that is so"

None of the items in that list are good religious works. They will not earn salvation for you. And if you approach them as though they will, you will miss their point and miss out on faith. They are what the Reformation theologians called "means of grace," holes through which eternity bursts through to us, openings through which the arms of God can enfold you.

I've used the analogy before, but they're like a batted ball to which an outfielder goes to make a catch. The fielder has no control over the speed of the pitch made by the person on the mound. The fielder can't control what kind of charge the hitter puts into the ball once he's swung. All the fielder can do is position herself or himself to make the catch. 

God is using these means to "bat" faith our way. The question is are we willing to be where we need to be to "catch" the faith the Holy Spirit wants to hit our way?

The faith you catch won't make sense to you at first. There's so much about the Christian Gospel that doesn't make sense. That may, in your mind, make a case against surrendering faith in Christ at first. But, as C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, isn't also characteristic of the biggest facts in life to be not what you'd have anticipated at all? 

I met an elderly woman at a church where I was preaching one Sunday. She was matronly, having spent years as an elementary teacher and being something of a second mother to her students. This doughty little woman, I learned, had one something like $50-million dollars in the Ohio Lottery just the day before. I couldn't believe it. But it was true. The truest truths are often like that, beyond your capacity to imagine. That's the way it is with the message of the Bible about Jesus.

No matter how hard it is to believe in Jesus, it is absolutely true and it becomes more plausible as you allow yourself each day to more and more walk in Christ's orbit. And before you know it, if you're not careful, the Holy Spirit will have you saying and meaning things like this:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
  
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.  He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  He descended into hell.  On the third day He rose again.  He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.  He will come again to judge the living and the dead. 
 
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  Amen.

Are you willing to have faith like that expressed in the Apostles' Creed? 

If so, position yourself for it. Go to the places where the Holy Spirit can be counted on to be present. Then just tell God, "I'm willing to believe in Christ, Lord. I'm willing to doubt by doubts and worship You as my only God. Work the miracle of faith in me."

Guess what? I've seen that miracle take hold in the lives of hundreds of people during my twenty-nine years as a pastor and during thirty seven years as a Christian, including in my own life.

What have you got to lose? Shall I name what you've go to lose? You can lose sin and death and the hounding of the devil. Those are great things to lose!

Turn to Christ. Let the Spirit have access to your will and your life.

Then let the Spirit give you a faith in Christ that is more than Sunday morning propriety, but week-in and week-out trust in Christ that's so big you don't care who thinks you're crazy.

You'll want the whole world to know that the crucified and risen Jesus is alive and ready to change anyone's life. By your words and your life of (however imperfect) commitment to Christ, you'll unleash the Spirit that's changing you to change others. 

Changing may scare you. You may feel quite comfortable in your favorite sins or in your letting God do His thing while you do yours. But Jesus says, "Everyone...who acknowledges Me before others, I also will acknowledge before My Father in heaven; but whoever denies Me before others, I also will deny before My Father in heaven" (Matthew 10:32).

The Holy Spirit stands ready to help you get to know the truth about Jesus Christ and to learn how to publically acknowledge Jesus every day. 

Are you ready to let Him? Even if your answer is only, "Maybe," charge ahead! Position yourself to receive God's grace and the Lord Jesus at the center of your life!