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Grow up, Peter Pan! (Part 3 of 3)
If you’re a young man here in America, you’ve probably got a Peter Pan problem. In the first post in this series on Thursday, we looked at a list of symptoms that might indicate how even a Christian young man can struggle with a failure to grow up and take responsibility for the things that God wants him to take responsibility for. Then, in the second post, we looked at the heart issue behind this failure: we insist on maintaining the illusion of adequacy, and thus we only do the things that we are good at (e.g. watching TV, surfing the Internet, or even homework or sports). We aren’t willing to take on things that we’re bad at because it would wound our pride and force us to cry out to God for help.
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.
Incredible sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
I’m planning on writing a series of posts on the role of human wisdom based on 1 Corinthians 1-2. In the meantime, I ran across a wonderful, wonderful sermon by Joshua Harris entitled “Christ the Wisdom and Power of God.” It’s 48 minutes long and worth every second. It’s really addressed a lot of teaching I’ve come across, including the book Velvet Elvis that I’m reading. I’ve begun listening to Harris’ sermon series on 1 Corinthians—it’s great stuff.
Making God palatable
Sometimes, God doesn’t quite fit into our cultural values. We are surrounded by a whole worldview and philosophy that is not totally compatible with God. That was certainly the case in Colosse. Paul wrote to the Colossians in opposition to the Gnostics, who believed that spirit was good, matter was evil, and thus Jesus didn’t really come in the flesh. They held these clearly heretical views because they wanted the gospel to fit into the philosophical trends of their day. Paul condemned the Gnostics with these words:
Colossians 2:6-10, 15
6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority…. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
We are not to try to adapt the gospel to human philosophical systems (à la liberal and Emergent theology); rather, we are to recognize that Christ defeated the spiritual rulers and authorities who are responsible for these systems. We should never be afraid that others will think we are foolish; instead, we are to remember that God has declared the wisdom of this world to be foolish (1 Corinthians 1:25).
Unfortunately, well-intentioned Christians sometimes fall into the trap of trying to conform God to societal values. They see something in the Bible that offends them, and so they build a philosophical system to make God’s actions more palatable. A couple examples I’ve run across:
- Claiming that God’s wrath comes from his love, i.e. God is wrathful only because he is loving. I’ve heard this traced back to the love between members of the Trinity, but quite frankly, this is just a way to make God’s wrath seem less offensive. Biblically, God’s wrath is traced to his holiness—he cannot stand the sight of sin and has promised to punish evildoers.
- Claiming that the reason evil exists in the world is that God values man’s free will. That is, it’s so important to God that people will choose him freely and unrobotically that he’s willing to allow people to do evil things. Of course, this is nothing more than speculation—there is nothing in the Bible that says God allowed sin to enter the world because he wanted people to love him out of their own free will. In fact, it’s clear from the Bible that it is by God’s sovereign decree or plan that evil takes place.
In the past, I’ve definitely valued many theodicies attempting to defend God that are based on human speculation and philosophy, not on the Bible. In fact, I probably still do. May we heed the words of Solomon, who warned us to “beware of anything beyond” the words of the wise, “given by one Shepherd” (Ecclesiastes 12:11-12).
We suffer because God is both powerful and wise
The problem of evil is presented in our culture as the following question: if God is both a loving God and a powerful God, then why does He let bad things happen to good people? Some people respond to this question by denying that God is all-powerful or all-knowing (for example, open-view theists deny that God knows the future). They compromise the awesome nature of God because they feel that there is no excuse for God to allow suffering.
Job struggled with the same problem. Even though he was a righteous man, God allowed Satan to destroy all his possessions, kill off his children, and afflict him with boils. His friends were (falsely) convinced that Job must have sinned to deserve this, but Job “was righteous in his own eyes” (Job 32:1). He couldn’t understand why God would let this happen to him.
When God spoke to Job in chapters 38-41, He had three main points:
- I am wise (38-39).
- I am powerful (40-41).
- You are not.
God proved His wisdom by the fact that He created the world. He challenged Job with a heavy dose of sarcasm, asking him which of the two of them had created the earth by wisdom. “You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!” (38:21). He also reminded Job that He was the one who preserved the created order and who continued to govern the universe. “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion?” (38:31). God then moved on to describe His intimate knowledge and loving care of the animals that He created — lions, ravens, mountain goats, wild donkeys, wild oxen, ostriches, horses, and hawks. “Is the wild ox willing to serve you?” was His challenge to Job (39:9).
God then described two powerful animals, Behemoth and Leviathan. (I’ve heard these referred to as a dinosaur and an extinct marine reptile, respectively, since they don’t fit the description of any living animals.) Behemoth was “the first of the works of God” (40:19) incredibly strong and unafraid even of a powerful flooded river. And God couldn’t seem to get enough of Leviathan — “I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame….On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear” (41:12, 33). Yet the creature is not more powerful than its Creator: “No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me?” (41:11). God’s power is colossal, and even the terrible Leviathan is nothing in His sight.
Job was humbled before God. He admitted God’s superior strength (42:2) and wisdom (42:3). Even though God never explained to him why he was suffering, he saw that He could trust an infinitely wise and powerful God — a God who knew what He was doing.
I love this passage of scripture because it reminds me to think of my life from God’s perspective. I can get all worked up about my future or about the struggles I’m facing, but here I’m reminded that this is all part of God’s plan. He is wise and He is powerful. He knows better than me what to do with my life, lovingly bringing me both pain and pleasure.
Rather than viewing the problem of evil in terms of God’s power and love, perhaps we should join the Bible in focusing on God’s power and wisdom. We should remind ourselves that there is a wise purpose behind all the pain in the world and that God has made it clear to us in His Word.
