The Nakedness of Faith

Wednesday night I was out with my 2-year-old son Zeke trying to take care of some work-related stuff. I love this little guy! He's curious, relentless, and fearless. He also has a speech delay, as well as some other developmental delays, that have prevented him from talking and doing other age-appropriate activities. On top of that, he's started having seizures in the past few months, which means he's been diagnosed with epilepsy. It's a terrifying thing to watch your young child seize up, lose control of his body, and struggle to take breaths. Zeke disappears deep into himself during his seizures. I look into his eyes and I don't see anyone there.

Before Wednesday night, he'd had four seizures, two of which I have seen in person. As we were walking into the store together, I noticed that he wasn't acting like himself. He was quiet, tired, and cranky. He seemed to have trouble focusing, like his head kept moving, involuntarily, over his left shoulder. His left eye began to twitch, and I saw the emptiness in those big brown eyes. This was a seizure, mild in comparison to his other ones, but the first one without mommy around.

For the third time in ten days, we wound up in the ER at Children's Hospital. The seizure had ended by the time we arrived, and his energy and vitality slowly came back to him. He was himself again in about an hour.

Zeke, after destroying his yogurt.

I don't know why this seizure happened. He had his regular dose of medication. It started in a familiar environment - our van. I have no explanation, which means, I guess, that a seizure could grip him at any time. This reality fills me, as it would any parent, with deep anxiety. What if it happens again and no one's around to help him? Why didn't the medicine work? Are the seizures related to his developmental delays? Will he ever be "typical"?

On the other hand, as Breena and I were driving Zeke home from the ER that night, we were both filled with tremendous faith. Despite the seizure, we both were seeing signs of progress with his speech and overall development. We believe that God will heal Zeke. We believe that God is healing Zeke. We don't know when this healing process will be done. We don't know how it's all going to shake out. But we hope and believe that God is working, and will continue to work, a miracle in Zeke's life.

Believing this, and saying it publicly, fills me with a sense of vulnerability. I can't control whether or not Zeke has another seizure. There is no surgical procedure, that I know of, that will fix his developmental delay. He's either going to grow out of it, or he's not. God will either heal him in this life, or we'll all have to wait, as so many people do, for the resurrection. Obviously, my wife and I are believing God for the former.

Zeke and Mommy.

This kind of faith makes me feel exposed, like in those dreams when I show up to school naked. (Yes, I still have those dreams, it's just that the context is different now.) To trust God for something, whether it's your son's healing or your own salvation, requires you to take a stand. This faith demands that you forsake all other avenues of rescue, and lean solely into the object of your faith - to believe, as it were, without the aid of a safety net.

The nakedness of faith is that we put everything on the line for Jesus and let him decide how he'll come through for us in the end. Faith demands that we let go of control, that we throw ourselves onto the person of Jesus Christ in complete desperation of soul. It's him, and nothing else. (Of course we're still giving Zeke his medicine, but we understand that the medicine isn't actually healing his brain or aiding the developmental process, it's just keeping his seizures at bay. Sometimes.)

I can't control whether or not Zeke has another seizure or choose the day he'll start speaking clearly. Neither can I manipulate God into making his seizures and developmental delays go away. All I can do is trust that Jesus is King, and that no matter what happens, he loves me, he loves Zeke, and in the end we're going to be a part of his eternal and infinite reign. This has a strange way of making me feel both vulnerable and secure. I have nowhere to hide, and yet I can hide myself in Christ. I have no other clothes to wear, and yet I can put on faith like a garment. I believe, and I believe nakedly.

Faith

I don't know where you're at today. I don't know what setbacks you've encountered recently. I don't know what you're going through right now. Maybe you're having a crisis of faith--in God, in people, in yourself. Maybe what was once so certain has become hazy, gone out of focus like a bad photograph.

I've had a lot of fun planting Ember Church, but I'd be lying to you if I told you that it was easy. Church planting is hard work, if for no other reason than that the devil is opposed to it. We've experienced setbacks. We've gone through trials. We were cruising along the highway going 65 when all of a sudden someone put a speedbump on the interstate. Every church planting team goes through this. Every established church goes through this. Heck, every family, every corporation, every school goes through this. It's a part of life.

What makes it especially difficult for a church planting team, though, is that you begin to ask questions like, "Is God still with us? Does he want us to quit? Are we doing the right thing here?" What was once so certain becomes hazy when we get hit by the trials of life. It happens. Trials happen. It doesn't mean that God has abandoned us. Quite the opposite, actually. Any team that's doing God's work and fulfilling his purposes for their community will experience resistance from Satan.

The enemy has come to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to steal your joy. He wants to kill your spirit. He wants to destroy the work of God in your life. That is always his aim. He wants you to doubt God's call on your life. He wants you to doubt God's presence with you. Don't. Faith is trusting in God despite the mounting evidence. Faith sees with eyes that look through circumstances and see the living God, standing in the midst of it all, inviting you to his side. Faith sees the true, deeper reality, that God is--that he simply and fully is--and in that finds overwhelming joy.

In one of the most incredible passages in the whole Bible, Peter puts it like this:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,

who through faith are shielded by God’s power

until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In all this you greatly rejoice,

though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith

—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—

may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Though you have not seen him,

you love him;

and even though you do not see him now,

you believe in him

and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

for you are receiving the end result of your faith,

the salvation of your souls.

That's 1 Peter 1:3-9. You should probably read it again.

You have been given an entirely new life, a life that is rooted in a hope that lives because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. You have been given an inheritance that can never wear out or be destroyed--an inheritance that Jesus is keeping for you in heaven.

God's power shields you from the wiles and lies of Satan through your faith in Jesus Christ. This protection lasts for more than a moment--it lasts from this moment until the day Jesus returns in power and glory to judge and reign on the earth.

Because of this...rejoice! Greatly rejoice! Even though you're going through crap right now, that crap has come so that you have the opportunity to persevere--so that you can see just how genuine your faith in Jesus is. And rejoice, because this crap too shall pass.

You haven't seen him; and yet you love him. You haven't seen him; and yet you have put your trust in him--the resurrected King of the cosmos. And when you press into that reality, into what is really real and truly true, then you will be filled with an inexpressible joy because, in that, you are receiving what your faith has promised, the salvation of your soul in the here and now.

That Which Defiles

This morning I read Mark 7 as part of my devotional reading. (I do the M'Cheyne reading program on youversion, and yes, I'm a couple days behind.) The first half of the chapter is a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees about ceremonial cleanliness.

Apparently, Jesus' disciples didn't wash their hands before they ate, which broke the tradition of the Jewish elders. (The washing of hands had more to do with ceremonial or ritualistic cleanliness than personal hygiene.) When the Pharisees called Jesus out on this, he laid into them pretty good, calling them "hypocrites" and dropping some Scripture on them. (We would call this a Jesus Juke today, but what did Jesus call it? A "me juke"? "Typical conversation"?) Then he called out the Pharisees for having traditions that contradict the commands of Scripture. There's a golden preaching moment here about our own traditions and beliefs that we value so highly but which, ultimately, contradict Scripture. But I'll let that one pass...

As if that wasn't enough, Jesus goes on to essentially rewrite all of the Old Testament food laws! Speaking about food, he says, "Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them." This is a bold statement in that culture, and it certainly wasn't lost on Mark, who commented on it, "In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean." This is such a loaded statement that I don't even know where to begin, so I'll just have to let that one pass, too...

But Jesus isn't done yet! He calls the Pharisees (and the rest of humanity, for that matter) on the carpet for the sin that resides in their hearts. That, he says, is what really defiles someone.

What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, our of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come--sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.

The Pharisees made sure to obey all the food laws because they thought that, by obeying Torah and Tradition, they would be clean, undefiled. But Jesus told them they were already defiled because of the sin that lives in their hearts. Our fundamental problem is not that we become defiled by the things we do, but that we are already defiled by the sinful desires that reside in our hearts, and those sinful desires inevitably lead to sinful actions.

The Pharisees' attempts at ritualistic cleanliness were futile. In the same way, your attempts to be good enough for God are pointless. Because of indwelling sin, you simply cannot be good enough for God. None of us can. Our only hope is if someone who does not have sin can provide a way for us to identify with himself so that, when we stand before God at the final judgment, he will vouch for us.

Wouldn't you know it? This is exactly what Jesus has done for us, and the way he has provided for us to identify with himself is through faith. No cleanliness commands. No tradition of the elders. No impossible moral code. Simply faith. How beautiful is that?

From Foreigner To Friend

Jesus had a unique way of communicating. He spoke deep, cosmic truth by telling short, earthy stories. These were called parables, and they were designed to speak the truth of God's kingdom from unexpected angles. We've titled one of these stories "The Parable of the Sower".

"A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear."

...

"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."

This parable has always puzzled me because it seems to teach that every person is either one type of soil or the other, and they don't have any choice in the matter. A bit too Calvinistic for my Armenian bent. But what if it's a spectrum instead of a grid, and Jesus isn't speaking definitively, but rather generally?

One way to think about this parable is viewing it as a spectrum of how we relate to Jesus:

Foreigner ----> Fan ----> Follower ----> Friend

The foreigner is the one who is far from Jesus, who doesn't know him at all, doesn't believe in him and doesn't care about him. This is the person who represents the seed sown along the path.

The fan is the one who has heard the good news and accepted it. They have experienced that moment of salvation, and have possibly even been baptized. But their excitement and emotion soon dissipate when they realize just what is being demanded of them. This is the person who represents the seed sown in the rocky ground.

The follower is the one who has moved past the "fan" stage. They have counted the cost, so to speak, but their faith has been stalled by the worries and troubles of life. They've gotten to a certain point in their faith but find it impossible to move forward. This is the person who represents the seed sown among thorns.

The friend is the one who has gone through all the stages to experience what Jesus said to his first disciples: "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." This is the person who represents the seed sown in the good soil.

These, I believe, are stages along a journey rather than pre-ordained destinies. When we look at the parable through this lens, we see how Jesus is explaining the reality of our lives. We are not born as good soil, but rather must grow into that reality. Because of our sin, we are all born into that first stage of being a foreigner to Jesus, of being the seed along the path.

We move from foreigner to fan when we first receive the gospel and repent of our sins. This is the moment of salvation. Many people find themselves immediately ready to make this transition, while others need to hear the gospel and see it in action for many years. Sadly, the vast majority of people never move out of the sad stage of being a foreigner to Jesus.

We move from fan to follower as we pursue the path of discipleship. In this time the reality of following Jesus will strike us, and he will demand that we make certain sacrifices to keep pace. Many, many Christians do not successfully make the transition from fan to follower.

We move from follower to friend when we experience deep soul-intimacy with Jesus. This often happens when we go through great times of pain in life. As we come through these times we can say, from first-hand experience, with the Psalmist, "God is close to the brokenhearted." But as with the other stages, very few people move to the stage of being a friend of Jesus. Too many turn away from God when they experience pain. Rather than drawing closer to him in the midst of it, we so often blame him for the pain.

God's will for you is to be the good soil. He wants you to move from foreigner, or fan, or follower, to that last stage of friend. Where do you find yourself on this spectrum? I find myself moving backwards and forwards along it through the different stages of my life; right now I see myself somewhere between fan and follower. I have a road to walk, as do you, but my heart is comforted because I know that Jesus walks it with me.

Famine

Genesis 12 tells the story of when Abram met God. God had a great plan for Abram--a plan to bless him beyond his wildest dreams, to give him a vast and fruitful land, to make him the father of a great nation. This what God said to him:

Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.

So Abram left. Wouldn't you? What an incredible promise from God! Abram took his wife and everyone in his household and set out for Canaan. He entered the land God promised him and immediately made an altar to the Lord. Then he wandered around the land, scoping out his new home, and built a couple more altars to God.

But then he left. He walked away from the land God had promised him and went down to Egypt. Why? Because "there was a famine in the land." Not just any famine, mind you, but a "severe" one. So Abram made a practical decision to move to Egypt for a while, at least until the famine relented. I contend that it was the wrong decision.

Abram made a practical decision borne out of the physical reality of the famine. He did not make a decision based on faith borne out of God's promise to 1) give him this land, 2) make him a great nation, and 3) bless him. Abram abandoned the promise of God for the security of Egypt. He forsook God's blessing that he might enjoy the blessings of Pharaoh. Abram let a famine, not the God who had spoken to him a blessing and a promise, determine his reality.

It would be decades before Abram would learn that barrenness of land and womb are a small thing to God. Don't let a famine dictate your reality. God can bring water from a rock and food from the sky. Don't leave the land you've been promised to pursue safety in Egypt. Egypt is the land of slavery, not security. Don't let pragmatism replace faith. Don't let the famine steal your blessing or promise. God is bigger than your famine. His promise will outlast it. His blessing is greater than this trial. Persevere through faith and lay claim to God's promise and his blessing.