• Religious people
• Businessmen
• Salesmen
• Merchants
• Treehuggers

The guy never bothered to read Dale Carnegie’s book, did he?

• Read Mark 11:12–25

It’s been a while since we’ve seen one of these “sandwich stories” that Mark includes in his account of Jesus’ life. He starts with Story A, then interrupts it with Story B, then concludes by finishing Story A. The interrupting story (Story B) helps you and me understand what is going on in Story A.

Here, Story A begins with Jesus walking to Jerusalem. Apparently, he missed his breakfast that morning, so he’s hungry. He sees a leafy fig tree in the distance, walks up to it, finds no figs to eat, and curses it. If that seems a little arbitrary and vindictive, Mark only makes the problem worse; he explains that the reason Jesus found no figs on the tree is that “it was not the season for figs.”

So what’s the deal here? Did Jesus wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

We quickly find the answer when Mark shifts to Story B: the “cleansing” of the temple. Jesus enters the temple in Jerusalem and begins clearing out all the salesmen and moneychangers who have set up shop in the Court of the Gentiles, which is where non-Jewish people can enter to pray to God. He also prevents people from using this Court as a shortcut when carrying things from one side of the city to the other. He thunders, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of robbers.’” He’s quoting to them a couple of passages from the Old Testament prophets. The first is from Isaiah 56:7, where God invites foreigners to worship him at the temple. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day are permitting salesmen to interfere with this purpose of the temple, just so they can make a quick buck. That’s one reason why Jesus is quoting the second passage of scripture. It’s from Jeremiah 7:11.

Now, in the context of Jeremiah 7, the Lord God was condemning the people of Israel for their unjust and idolatrous behavior. They were convinced that they were safe from punishment because they had the temple with them; they believed that their religious system would protect them from harm. They were viewing the temple the way criminals view their hideout. But the Lord threatened to destroy the temple as the holy city of Shiloh had been destroyed. And now Jesus is implying a similar threat to the religious leaders of his day, who think that their external religion will cover up the wickedness inside their hearts.

Needless to say, Jesus doesn’t make a lot of friends today. Mark tells us that “the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him.” Why? “They feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.” Jesus is speaking with divine authority, and it’s mesmerizing the people who hear it. Of course, the words of God always threaten those who rely on the power structures of this present world. If Jesus had come to modern-day America, we would have killed him, too.

Now, we get back to Story A and find out that the fig tree has withered. Aha! we realize. The fig tree symbolizes the temple establishment. Jesus is cursing those who are abusing the temple as a means to financial gain and as a religious hideout for their crooked hearts. Just as the fig tree has “withered away to its roots,” so the temple will be destroyed, so that “there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Mark 13:2).

But the temple was the place where God came down and lived with his people. If the temple and its crooked leaders are to be done away with, will Jesus’ disciples be cut off from God? No! Remember, the fig tree withered at Jesus’ words. God still has power and is still eager to hear the prayers of his people. “Have faith in God!” Jesus encourages them. “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.”

Is Jesus giving us a blank check to get whatever we want when we pray? No, this is clearly contradicted by other biblical teaching (e.g. James 4:3). What Jesus is doing is using hyperbole to encourage you and me. He knows that it’s easy to think that God is far away and doesn’t care about us. Without a physical building like the massive Jerusalem temple, it’s hard to believe that God is near. So he reminds us that God is eager to do great things for us. Most amazing of all, he can forgive the sins you’ve committed against him—grievous though they are—as long as you are forgiving others (v 25). He is absolutely worth your trust.

You belong to one of two camps. Perhaps you are trusting in a religious system or some other man-made scheme to justify yourself before God. You think that it will protect you from his wrath. But he will curse your external religion and your self-righteousness. Your stubborn resistance against him will give him no choice but to destroy you.

Or perhaps you trust in God to protect you and to forgive you for your rebellion against him. Then you will find that he will do impossible things for you. He will bend heaven and earth to bring you close to him.

But what if Gary Faulkner hadn’t entered Pakistan as a one-man army? What if the U.S. Army had approached him and offered tactical support from satellites and drones, and equipped him with powerful weapons and hardware? His odds for success would have increased tremendously if he accepted. But to be empowered in this way, he would first have to become dependent on the U.S. government, and I imagine that’s not something that Faulkner would be willing to do.

Jesus’ disciples faced a similar dilemma when encountering an enemy far more powerful than any terrorist. Sadly, they didn’t fare much better at defeating this foe than Faulkner did at killing bin Laden.

• Read Mark 9:14–29

Jesus and his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, have just descended from the mountain where Jesus has given them a sneak peek of his glory in an event known as the Transfiguration. When they arrive at the foot of the mountain, they are snapped back into reality as they face a chaotic crowd riled up by fierce arguments between the rest of Jesus’ disciples and some experts in the law of Moses. Jesus asks what’s going on, and a man volunteers an answer. “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute,” he says. That’s just the beginning. The spirit also causes his son to fall into severe seizures. The man brought his son to see Jesus, but since Jesus was up on the mountain, the man had asked the disciples to cast out the unclean spirit. Now, Jesus had given them authority to do this (Mark 6:7), but inexplicably, they haven’t able to drive out the demon. Now all the religious teachers, looking for an excuse to discredit Jesus, are stirring up conflict against his hapless disciples.

Jesus is exasperated with the situation. “O faithless generation,” he says, “how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” He knows why the spirit won’t be driven out. The pervasive unbelief of the religious leaders, the crowds, and even his own disciples has denied them access to his authority as the divine Messiah.

Jesus orders the father, “Bring him to me.” When he does, the unclean spirit defies Jesus by inducing another seizure, so that his battered body is thrashing on the ground, foam dribbling from his mouth. The father explains that this situation has continued since he was a little child. The demon has used these seizures to throw the man’s son into fire and into water in a cruel attempt to kill him. Watching yet another awful seizure, the man pleads with Jesus, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us!”

“‘If you can’!” Jesus is incredulous. “All things are possible for one who believes.”

That’s the real problem here, you see. All the man sees is the supernatural entity gripping his son; all he knows is that he is powerless to stop this malevolent force. He doesn’t see Jesus’ divine authority. He isn’t sure that Jesus has the power to put an end to the spirit’s control of his son. But at Jesus’ words, his eyes are opened. He finally sees what’s really going on here. He cries out, “I believe!” and then, “Help my unbelief!”

If there is a verse in the Bible that better captures the agonizing tension of a Christian’s walk with God, I don’t know what it is. You say that he has power, but you can barely bring yourself to really believe it, deep down. You’ve got nothing more than a tiny mustard seed of faith.

But Jesus is satisfied with even a mustard seed. The crowd is growing in size, and it’s time to act now. He says to the demon, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” The boy convulses and shrieks, then lies still, corpse-like. The crowd is silent. Finally, a few people begin to whisper their worst fears: “He is dead.” But Jesus reaches down and takes his hand; the boy revives and stands on his feet, as though he were rising from the dead.

The scene shifts to the inside of a house, later in the day. Jesus’ disciples are questioning him, “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus replies, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” A demon of such power won’t leave on one’s own authority. A disciple of Jesus must rely on prayer to accomplish what he himself cannot do.

In the moment of crisis, the boy’s father had understood this. He had asked Jesus for help to end the oppression of his son, but Jesus showed him that his greatest need was not deliverance from oppression but rather deliverance from unbelief.

Our culture urges you and me with platitudes such as “believe in yourself, and you can do anything.” Jesus tells us that this is a lie. Anyone who is a disciple of Jesus will face spiritual barriers that he or she cannot overcome. You will face suffering and conflict that you cannot handle. When the chips are down, who do you rely on? Is it yourself, or is it Jesus?

Jesus demands that you depend on him by spending less time flattering yourself and more time praying. He is not demanding your dependence merely to subjugate you but rather to empower you. He’s proved his ability, so you can give up your illusions of your own ability.

When Jesus returns to his hometown after a spectacular ministry of preaching and performing miracles, he encounters a similar problem. His homecoming is a letdown for anyone who expects the townspeople to welcome him as their favorite son.

• Read Mark 6:1–6

With his disciples in tow, Jesus arrives at his hometown (Nazareth, though Mark tellingly refuses to name it). On the Sabbath, he preaches at the local synagogue, a place that must have seemed familiar to him; this synagogue was basically the small-town church he grew up in. When he preaches, the people of his hometown gather to listen to the boy from their town who has “made it big.” Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus says to them (for that story, read Luke’s account). Whatever it is, the people are “astonished.” They mutter to one another, “Where did this man get these things?” It certainly wasn’t from them! His “wisdom” and “mighty works” are unfamiliar to them. He was one of them when he was growing up as a little boy, but now he has outgrown their traditional, legalistic Judaism.

This doesn’t sit well with the people of Jesus’ hometown. “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” The rest of Jesus’ family is still stuck in the old mindset, the old legalism of the Pharisees. Like the rest of the town, they think Jesus is out of his mind (Mark 3:21)! They still fit in, but Jesus doesn’t anymore. The truth is, he never did; it’s only now that the townspeople are realizing it. As far as they’re concerned, Jesus has betrayed the small-town values which make them who they are. In their minds, he has turned his back on them. They are deeply offended.

Jesus responds to their attitude with a proverb of sorts: “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” The irony is obvious. Like the proverbial prophet, Jesus is popular wherever he goes, but when he returns to the people who should honor him the most, he is rejected. You’d think his hometown and his family would be proud of him. They should be shoe-ins for “insider” status. Instead, they are upset at him because, instead of preserving their tradition, he has been announcing that it will be swept away with the coming of God’s kingdom.

Over the last two chapters, Jesus has shut down a raging storm, driven an army of demons out of a man, healed a diseased and hopeless woman, and raised a little girl from the dead. He certainly isn’t lacking for power. Yet Mark writes that he can’t do any mighty work in his hometown, other than healing a handful of sick people. Instead, he marvels “because of their unbelief.” Mark has been recording how people have “marveled” or been “amazed” because of his miracles. Even the people of his hometown were “astonished” at his teaching. Now it is Jesus who marvels, because their unbelief is so irrational. It is a supernatural unbelief. Jesus knows that it would be pointless to perform a great miracle here; the people’s hearts are too hard. They will only harden their hearts further, in denial of the fact that he is greater than they think he is. They are too intent on clinging to their old way of life, the old kingdom that will soon pass away.

What’s really sad is that people haven’t changed too much in the last 2,000 years. Jesus still confronts us today, offering a new way of life, a new kingdom. But most people reject him because they don’t want to change. They’re comfortable with the way they’ve been living. And you know what the scary part is? The people who are the most resistant to Jesus, who have built up a supernatural resistance, are the ones sitting in church pews on Sunday morning. It’s people who think they have known Jesus their whole lives and are familiar with all the stories. But they’re stuck in a legalistic way of thinking, clinging to human tradition rather than the Word of God. It is no surprise that Jesus is doing no mighty work there. Please, if you’ve never considered this before, do it now. Are you and your church clinging to human tradition? Are you clinging to the mindset of the culture around you—whether the culture as it is now or the culture as it was fifty years ago? That kingdom will not last for long; it cannot be your home.

Jesus departs from his hometown, teaching among other villages in Galilee, where people will listen to him. His mission must go on; the good news of God’s kingdom must be preached. Nazareth is left behind.

• Read Mark 5:21–43

If you grew up attending Sunday School, the details of this story are familiar. The ruler of a local Jewish synagogue, a man by the name of Jairus, asks Jesus to heal his sick daughter. On the way, a woman sneaks up on Jesus from behind, touches his clothes, and is healed of a menstrual discharge that has plagued her for twelve years. Jairus finds out that his daughter has died, but Jesus goes to his house and raises her from the dead.

Here’s something that should give us pause, though: this is another one of Mark’s “sandwich stories.” Mark begins the story of Jairus’ daughter, interrupts it to tell about the woman, then finishes the story of Jairus’ daughter. The sandwiched, inner story of the woman should help us understand something important about the outer story that we wouldn’t have known otherwise. So how does the story of this suffering woman unlock the story of Jairus and his daughter?

There’s something odd about this inner story: it’s so mundane at first. Jesus has healed many diseased people before, and many of them have “pressed around to touch him” (Mark 3:10). What’s so special about this woman? Well, first of all, she is unusually desperate. She has been suffering menstrual bleeding for twelve years straight and has spent all her money on doctors who have only made the problem worse. Her bleeding makes her unclean according to the law of Moses, so for the last twelve years she has been somewhat isolated from her friends and family. Jesus is her last hope, her only hope. She dares to believe that he can save her from her suffering with a single touch: “If I touch even his garments I will be saved.” And sure enough, she feels his power course through her body and heal her at once.

At the same time, Jesus feels power flow out from him, and at once he demands to know who touched him. The disciples are incredulous—“You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” As though no one had ever done this before! Yet Jesus persists, and the woman comes forward, falls down before him, and tells him everything. She has felt his immense power surging through the depths of her being; she knows what he is capable of doing; and she is terrified. Will Jesus be furious at her for interrupting his urgent mission to Jairus’ house? Will he be horrified that an unclean woman has contaminated him?

“Daughter,” he says to her, “your faith has saved you.” He isn’t upset at her. He loves her—loves her as though she were his own daughter. He is thrilled to see how bold her faith is, bold enough to inconvenience him. She believed he could save her, and he is glad to give her what she spent twelve years longing for. “Go in peace, and be healed of your disease,” he says.

Now, here’s where we get back to Jairus’ story, because at that very moment, messengers come from his house with terrible news: “Your daughter is dead.” Jairus must have been devastated. He was so close to finding help for her; the famous rabbi was on his way to heal her, and now—all is lost. He will never get her back. It’s too late. The messengers ask him, “Why trouble the Teacher any further?” But Jesus is listening in, and he says to Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe.” And all at once, we understand why he insisted on speaking to the woman. It was for Jairus’ sake. Jesus wanted Jairus to see that he could believe in him. Jesus has power over disease and death; his authority is beyond that of any man. And he is eager to use that authority to help Jairus. There is no need to be afraid.

Jairus must have held on to a kernel of faith, because Jesus insists on showing up at his house, kicking out the hired mourners, and walking upstairs to where the girl lies dead. I love this scene! Jesus basically reaches out to her, takes her hand, and says to her, “Wake up, it’s time for lunch!” (If you don’t believe me, read verse 43!) As far as he’s concerned, “the child is not dead but sleeping”—no need to panic or anything. The people in the room are “overcome with amazement,” but Jesus is nonchalant about the whole thing. How can you not love him for that?

This story has a familiar ending: Jesus insists that the small circle of people in that room keep quiet about this. (I have no idea how they could!) This astounding experience is something special that he has given to those people who have faith. To the woman who got close to him and touched him, he gave her his power to save her from disease. To the parents of this girl, who believed in him even when all hope was lost, he gave them their daughter back. Those who mocked Jesus are left on the outside, wondering what just took place. They don’t get to see that Jesus has power over disease and death.

I urge you—come close to Jesus. He wants you to be with him. You feel unclean, unloved, but Jesus wants you to come to him to be washed in his blood, healed from your sin, clothed in his righteousness, raised to life again. Don’t be afraid. Only believe.

Have you ever experienced an event that rattled you so much that it altered the way you react to the situations you face in life? For the first time, Jesus’ disciples are about to experience that feeling when they realize that they have underestimated this Galilean rabbi.

• Read Mark 4:35–41

After a day of preaching in parables to his vast audience, Jesus decides it’s time to move on to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. So he and his disciples set out across the lake in a flotilla of fishing boats. Unfortunately, they are caught in the middle of the lake by a terrific windstorm which whips up massive waves that threaten to sink the vessels. Many of the disciples on Jesus’ boat were probably fishermen, and they knew all too well how deadly these storms could be. They could see that the boat was filling with water, that they couldn’t bail it out fast enough, that their death was inevitable. And just a few hours ago they had been basking in the attention of their rabbi and the adulation of the crowds!

At some point in their growing panic, some of Jesus’ disciples notice that he is in the stern—and that he is fast asleep. Unbelievable! They wake him up and shout, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” That’s the only possible explanation for why he is asleep. Jesus seems so callous toward their very survival.

Ignoring their question, Jesus gets on his feet and shouts to the wind and the waves roaring around him, “Peace! Be still!” He rebukes them, just as he has rebuked the unclean spirits. And then—“the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” And just as the demons did, the forces of nature obey him. I like to picture the storm clouds dissipating, leaving the reflections of stars in the smooth mirror of the lake. Little ripples spread out from the boat as it bobs up and down in the water. There is no sign of a storm, not a sound. The disciples are dumbstruck. After a moment’s silence, Jesus turns to them.

“Why are you so cowardly? Have you still no faith?”

Most translations have Jesus accusing the disciples of being “afraid,” but actually he is more frank than that. He calls them cowards. Their panic was unreasonable and unacceptable.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to sympathize with the disciples here. I can see why they would be afraid. The storm is too powerful; the waves are too great; their boat is too small. That’s not how Jesus sees it, though. He knows he has authority over the forces of nature. They can’t do a thing that he doesn’t permit. No need to interrupt his nap.

The disciples don’t perceive Jesus’ power, so they question his love. They doubt him. And because they doubt both his love for them and his power to save them, they become cowards. If you want to become a coward, this is the quickest way.

When Jesus intervenes with a miracle, their cowardice is replaced not with confidence but with “great fear.” When a great storm is replaced with a great calm, they are filled with great fear. The windstorm was tremendously dangerous; how much more so the man who has authority over the storm! “Who then is this?” they ask.

God often uses fear to unsettle us. The disciples didn’t seem to fathom that Jesus was anything more than a great teacher and miracle worker. Perhaps they may have entertained the notion that he was something more. But now, burning in their souls, is the reality that they don’t have a clue who Jesus really is. New questions are forming in their minds, questions whose answers will lead them to faith.

Jesus’ challenge to his disciples is essentially this: “Do you trust me?” By their actions, they show that they don’t—not yet. They need to see his fearsome authority over the wind and the sea. They need to know that he is more than a man. This is the cure for doubt and cowardice—to see Jesus Christ as trustworthy. You are weak; you are at the mercy of powerful forces that will crush you. But Jesus is strong. Don’t underestimate him.

Abraham’s faith is scary:  “Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.…So Abram went, as the LORD had told him’” (Genesis 12:1, 4).  The author of Hebrews explains:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.  And he went out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.  For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8–10)

We learn three things here.  First, this was an act of faith on Abraham’s part.  He obeyed “by faith.” We who follow Christ are justified by faith, and that same faith is what drives us to obey the Lord even when the way isn’t clear.  When we do hard things for God because we trust him to take care of us, we work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12).  Our faith is completed by our works because works are the natural response of faith (James 2:22); you can’t tease them apart since they are bound so close together.

Second, this act of faith was a huge risk.  Abraham was leaving everything that was familiar to him—his family, his city, his culture.  He had no idea where he was going.  He had no idea what he would find when he got there.  The road was long and dangerous, along wilderness roads rife with bandits, away from the safety of the city of Haran.

Third, he left this city because he was looking forward to “the city that has foundations,” what is later called “the city that is to come” (13:14).  Its designer and its builder is God.  In this city there would be safety and rest for the weary traveler.  When we look toward this city—the heavenly Jerusalem, where God dwells with his people (Revelation 21:2–3), we gain the courage we need to face any challenges that come our way.  We know that God will preserve us for it and that he will welcome us home with open arms to spend eternity with him.  We are safe in the hands of the sovereign Lord who has always loved us and always will.

That’s why trusting the Lord is so important, whether you’re single or married, young or old, man or woman.  Without it, we can’t do anything to please God, “for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).  If we seek him, trusting that he will reward our search for him by revealing his loving presence to us, there is no trial, no suffering so great that we cannot handle it; there is  no opportunity that we cannot seize to glorify him.

For someone who is single, faith can express itself in many ways.  I think we’ve lost sight of this.  Whenever I see the phrase “trust in the Lord” applied to a single person, it’s almost always in the context of waiting for marriage.  The prototypical narrative, found in Christian books and articles and personal testimonies, goes something like this:  someone really wants to get married badly, but finally learns to trust in the Lord, experiences a wonderful feeling of peace about it, no longer seeks a spouse, and then God dumps a man or woman in that person’s lap uninvited, and they get married and live happily ever after.  Sometimes this does happen.  But I wonder whether many people reduce it to a formula:  God won’t give you what you want until you don’t want it.  Really?  Is God some sort of killjoy?  Is he playing games with us?  “Nope, you can’t have that!  Oh wait, you don’t want it now?  Too bad, I’m giving it to you anyway!”  This is not always how God works.  Trusting in the Lord always means that we rest in his sovereign will, but it doesn’t always mean that we sit back and do nothing.

If you are single, there are actually many different ways you can trust the Lord.  Maybe more than one of these applies to your situation:

• You can be content to remain single, trusting that you don’t have to be married for the Lord to use you in remarkable ways (in fact, trusting that you can serve him in ways a married person never could!).
• You can give up worrying about whether or not you will find a spouse, knowing that the Lord will give you what is best for you (Romans 8:28), that his grace is sufficient to bring you through this season of pain (2 Corinthians 12:9), and that he will never abandon you (Hebrews 13:5).
• You can stop pursuing, in your actions and in your mind, men or women who aren’t believers or who aren’t eagerly following the Lord.  You trust that if you pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ, it will bring you far more joy than a relationship with anyone else ever could.
• You can stop setting impossible standards for a spouse, trusting that the Holy Spirit will always be working to sanctify both you and your husband or wife.
• You can have the courage you need to ask out that young woman you’re interested in, because you trust that the Lord will not abandon you even if you are rejected.  You will not fear; what can man do to you?  (Hebrews 13:5–6)
• You can have the courage to ask that young woman to marry you, trusting the Lord that he will always be there even as your whole life is rearranged and everything you understand and know is thrown out the window.
• You can have the courage to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, trusting the Lord to protect you and to bring you through any ensuing trials.
• You can trust the Lord after being dumped, knowing that he is present in the deepest darkness and will bring you through it (Psalm 23:4).  His own Son was forsaken so that you would never be abandoned.

What is wonderful is that there are so many ways to trust the Lord!  You might even face a decision where there is no “right” or “wrong” answer—just a choice of how you will express your faith in God.  Here’s the bottom line, delivered with a heavy dose of hyperbole:  whether you marry, and who you marry, are not important questions.  What’s truly important is that you act out of faith in a gracious God, showing the world how great his faithfulness really is.  His steadfast love for you will never cease.  Every morning, you will see his mercy to you in new and precious ways.  He has given himself to you.  Hope in him.  (Lamentations 3:22–23)

We were not saved to be mediocre.  God did not choose us in Jesus Christ “before the foundation of the world” to merely do the things for which we are adequate but “that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4).  So often, we settle for legalism.  We say and do enough to look like we’re obeying God’s law—enough to assuage our consciences and look good in front of other people.  But we’re living a life devoid of faith.  We aren’t willing to take risks for God; we’d rather trust in our own flesh than trust in God.

I don’t suppose you want to keep living like that.  Here’s God’s way to live:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.
—Jeremiah 17:7-8

“The man who trusts in man” (v. 5) lives in a wasteland.  But the one who trusts in the Lord—he grows and flourishes, bears fruit and stays green even in times of drought.

When we humble ourselves and begin to trust in the Lord rather than in our own adequacy, God’s Word comes alive.  When you start doing what God calls you to do, you will quickly find your own wisdom and your own strength to be inadequate.  You will find your own sin to be overwhelming.  You will find yourself in prayer, often and at length, crying out for help.  You will find yourself turning to the Bible for wisdom, guidance, and encouragement—and its words will no longer be boring but will crackle with energy.  You will find yourself turning to mature believers for advice, instead of keeping your problems bottled up inside of you.

If you’re waiting for God to flip some switch inside of you to give you the faith to do all of those things…sorry, it doesn’t usually work that way.  Here’s the advice that the apostle Paul gives:  “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13).  First, remember that God is at work in you.  He isn’t watching lazily from heaven, waiting for you to make the first move, turning a deaf ear to your prayers.  He is on your side.  He is with you in this!  He wants to see you grow and serve him faithfully, and he will exercise all of his might to make sure you do.  Second, you have to get to work.  You’re simply going to have to say a prayer, suck it up, and go out and take care of your responsibilities.  It will be hard.  You will be hurt.  But you will finally know what it means to be “happy in Jesus.”

It’s a simple truth, and we tend to dismiss simple truths because we think we’re beyond them.  But the fact is that we need to learn to trust and obey, like the hymn says:

When we walk with the Lord
In the light of his Word,
What a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will,
He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

Trust and obey,
For there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus,
But to trust and obey.

Now that I’ve laid out a ridiculously long laundry list of unmanly habits and ways of thinking, I’d like to examine what the root is behind this problem.  Why is it so hard for us to grow up?  Why do we stay so childish for so long?

Well, if you read the first post carefully, you may already have an idea where this is going to go.  I made a number of comments to the effect that if we just do things that we’re comfortable with or good at, we don’t need to depend on God.  I want to explore that a little more, because this is a dangerous tendency that is most pronounced in guys—because they are called as men to lead and to initiate—but affects everyone to some degree.

There’s a sentence in the Bible that I just haven’t been able to get out of my mind these last couple of weeks.  It’s the second half of 2 Corinthians 2:16:  “Who is sufficient for these things?” In context, of course, Paul is writing about the preaching of God’s word and its effect “among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (v. 15).  However, this question certainly applies to all forms of obedience.  We cannot obey the Lord without his Spirit at work within us “to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).  We are not sufficient—or adequate, as some translations put it—to do what is right with motives that are pleasing to God.  We are not adequate to display Christ in our actions, our attitudes, and our words.

Here’s what we are adequate for.  You and I are totally adequate to sit on the couch for hours and watch TV.  We are totally adequate to stay up until one in the morning surfing the Internet.  We are totally adequate to lock ourselves away in our rooms and do homework.  We are totally adequate not to tell our friends and family the good news of Jesus Christ.  We are totally adequate to wimp out on asking out young women we like.  We are totally adequate to confine ourselves to our circle of friends, people just like us, from our age group, around whom we’re comfortable.  We are totally adequate to do all these things that are easy and natural.

What a tragedy of adequacy!  We want to do only those things for which we are able to trust in our own strength.  Take a look at what God says about this lifestyle:

Thus says the LORD:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.”
—Jeremiah 17:5-6

I have lived in that uninhabited salt land for years.  Perhaps you have, too.  You’re miserable, aren’t you?  You haven’t seen any good come.  Your life is parched; you are depressed and discouraged.  Friends and movies and video games and sports can make you happy for a little while, but before long you are back in the desert.  The Bible seems dead, boring, and dry; your prayers are limp and ineffective.

You have trusted in man.  You have made flesh your strength.  Often, we put our trust in other people—in the President or sports icons or parents or friends; they will always disappoint us.  Yet a much more sinister form of trusting in man is when we trust in ourselves.  That’s why we only do the things we’re adequate to do.  You and I—we don’t want to do anything that would require us to trust in God.  We’d rather do what we’re capable of doing on our own.  It doesn’t take any faith whatsoever to watch TV or play video games or sports (if you’re athletic) or do homework (if you’re intelligent).  It takes faith to actually step out and obey God.

Of course, if we were to obey God, we’d quickly realize that we can’t do it on our own strength, and then we’d have to cry out for help.  That’s a blow to the ego.  And you and I have invested far too much effort into polishing our pride and propping up our reputations; we certainly can’t get down on our knees, weeping, crying out for help from the God who is the only one who can help.  “The arm of flesh will fail you; ye dare not trust your own.”

That’s why we’re Peter Pans.  We are self-reliant.  We are proud.  We are arrogant.  And we don’t want to have to act out of faith in God.  We don’t want to depend on him.

Of course, this lifestyle doesn’t work.  I know it doesn’t.  But often, I’d rather be miserable and govern my own life—with God as a Tinkerbell perched on my shoulder—than recognize and submit to his Lordship and experience the joy he has to offer.  More on that joy in the third and final post.

UPDATE:  The timing couldn’t be better.

Now, I’d like to address three other questions raised by Josh’s two posts:

• First, what is the means through which we are saved?

Biblically, we are saved through faith in the Lord Jesus (Ephesians 1:15, 2:8). This is more than just some sort of odd subconscious knowledge of His character; it involves a belief in the historical truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Josh quoted Romans 10:13 in His post, declaring that we simply had to call on the name or character of Jesus Christ to be saved, since the divine attributes of God are apparent in general revelation. I wish he had read the verses around it. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” We must believe in the historical truth of the Resurrection—which most non-Christians deny—in order to be saved.

Furthermore, Paul explains in the very next verse what this “calling on the name of the Lord” is: “But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14-15). Paul hear declares that non-Christians have not called on Christ and have not believed Him because they have never heard of Him. Josh argues that it is possible to be saved without a “mental belief” in Christ; Paul knows nothing of this schizophrenic “faith.” I don’t see how one can more explicitly deny Josh’s position than Paul does in Romans 10.

Sure, God is powerful enough to save people even if they don’t believe in Him. But He has chosen not to. Faith itself doesn’t save us; rather, it is appointed as the one and only means of salvation by God Himself (Romans 3:25, Ephesians 2:8-9). If you reject the historical Jesus, you reject Jesus. The gospel Josh presents is a false gospel.

(Note: the Old Testament saints were saved by believing in the promises foreshadowing Christ (Hebrews 11:13). Now that Christ has come, we are to believe in Him as the fulfillment of these promises.)

• Second, is it possible to understand anything about death, resurrection, and eternal life?

Josh says no—that all we have are “dim symbols” and that “the only thing we know is that we do not know.” This is false. We don’t have anywhere near a full understanding of these things. However, we do know some truths about them—that in death, the soul is separated from the body and, in the case of the Christian, dwells with Christ in Paradise (Luke 23:43). We know that in the resurrection, we will be given a new, immortal, spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:35-58). We know very little of what this means, but we do know that it will be imperishable, far more glorious and powerful than our present, natural body (1 Corinthians 15:42-43). And we know that right now, we Christians are experiencing eternal life (John 3:36).

Josh’s belief that our knowledge of God is inherently warped is wrong. We can know many true things about God; it’s just that our knowledge is partial (1 Corinthians 13:12). This belief is not based on the Bible but on human wisdom. Whereas human wisdom will never lead to an undistorted understanding of God, He has revealed Himself truthfully through His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-16). We can know things about death, resurrection, eternal life, and the character of God because His Spirit has been given to us.

• Third, is Christianity wrong in places?

Josh believes Christianity is more truthful than other religions, but nonetheless, it is merely a religion, which he labels as “man’s attempts to reach God (whatever they may call him), including all theologies, traditions, and formulas.” This is true of other religions, but it is not true of Christianity.

Christianity is based on the revelation of God from the Bible. It is not “man’s attempts to reach God” but rather what God demands from man. The Bible reveals to us what God requires of us; we respond by doing what He has commanded by the power of the Spirit which dwells within us.

One final note I would like to make begins with Josh’s use of Romans 3:22-23. Since “there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he says, there is no real difference between Christians and non-Christians; all can call on the name of the Lord. Once again, the surrounding verses blow holes in this argument, for they make it clear that “all” refers to “all who believe,” who “have faith in Jesus Christ”; their propitiation being “received by faith,” they are justified for having “faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:22-26). This does not refer to every last person on earth, but only to believers (Christians). Misuse of scripture runs rampant through both of Josh’s posts. In each case, the context of each of the verses he cites has not been allowed to explain what each verse means. It is clear that these arguments are buttressed by poor exegesis of scripture, as are all false doctrines.

Finally, I do want to make it clear that I have a lot of respect and love for Josh; any harshness present in my posts is not an attempt to tear him down but rather to correct him.  I apologize if there is any way I could have said these things just as plainly with kinder words; I am still learning how to speak the truth in love.