He Gets Us | I Decide for God

So… recently, a friend told me a story about trapping monkeys in the jungle. Now, it wasn’t him who was trapping them, but he heard about an ancient way of trapping monkeys that struck him as peculiar..

Apparently, tribes would tie a gourd to a tree limb, cut a hole just large enough for a monkey to fit its hand, and then place a piece of fruit inside to bait the monkey. Then, when the monkey would reach inside to grab the fruit, it wouldn’t be able to pull its hand out with the bait, so its hand would remain stuck inside the gourd.

Here’s a short video from 1912 that depicts the trap at work…

[[[Play Video]]] 33-45… 55-60 (speaking over silent video)

The monkey places his hand inside the gourd, grabs onto the bait, but then gets stuck in the gourd for one reason and one reason only… because it refuses to let go of the bait.

Even when big scary human beings walk over to it, grab it, secure it, and tie it, the monkey never lets go of the bait.

When I heard my friend tell this story, it struck me as odd.

How could such an intelligent animal let itself become captured simply because it wouldn’t let go of something that it wanted?

*** [slowly] Didn’t it know that it needed to let go to find freedom?

Oh wait… that’s us, that’s me, that’s you, that’s every person. We do the very same thing, don’t we?

The bait of luxury, the bait of pleasure, the bait of glory, the bait of… you name it… each appear on the surface so accessible and within the reach of our grasp. That is, until we latch onto it and become stuck in the gourd.

Sometimes, we feel the entrapment right away - like, oh man, I just fell for it and got myself into a world of hurt.

Other times, it might take years before you realize that you’re stuck.

Every situation is different.

Every person is different.

Oftentimes, our motivation for why we even grabbed onto the bait and kept hold of it can be complicated and hard to understand, but what is true is that at some point in our lives, all of us will grab onto the bait and refuse to let go.

Once this becomes apparent, the question becomes: who’s holding onto who?

Is the bait holding onto you? Or, are you holding onto the bait, and depending on how you answer this question will determine whether or not you find freedom or live trapped.

But here’s the good news: you get to decide!

In our current series, “He Gets Us,” we’re exploring the biblical basis for the 12 steps and inviting Jesus to meet us as a healer and coach in whatever part of our lives that need wholeness and forever freedom.

Navigating these 12 steps is tough. In fact, finding forever freedom from the hurts, habits, and hang ups that hinder us from the good life that Jesus promised us may be the toughest thing some of us ever do.

But what a mighty God we serve!

Nothing is too hard for God!

***Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. Jeremiah 32:17

His power and outstretched arm is mighty to save and able to restore through his merciful touch!

Jesus helps us face things that aren’t easy to face in this life because he gets us at every level of our lives.

In the first step, we admitted we were powerless over some part of our lives — that our lives have become unmanageable.

We said: Jesus understands that I am not ok, so I admit that I need help.

In the second step, We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.

We said: Jesus believes that I matter, no matter what, so I believe God can help.

Today, we turn our attention to the third step, which declares: “We are making a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.”

Today, we are saying, “Jesus treats me like a healer and coach, so I decide for God.”

The freedom to choose rests in your hands. You get to decide either to invite Jesus into your life - into your hurts, habits, and hang ups - as healer and coach or to remain trapped in your sin.

You get to decide. God has graciously given you the power of free will to decide.

In Luke chapter 15, toward the end of Jesus’ life, the teachers of the law complained that people of questionable reputations followed Jesus and listened intently to him.

They grabbed onto the bait of self-righteousness and pride - like many of us often do - and not only refused to let go, but felt justified in their accusations and alienation against others.

They were blind to see just how blind they really were, but their complaints didn’t stop Jesus from teaching those who recognized and admitted their need. Luke tells us that Jesus even ate with them.

Jesus loves to dignify those who others tossed aside, and this deeply troubled the ones who tossed them aside, so when the religious leaders once more made trouble for Jesus and showed themselves ignorant to Jesus’ true purpose and identity as Servant King and Messiah, Jesus told them three stories: one about a lost sheep, one about a lost coin, and one about a lost son.

At the end of the stories about the lost sheep and lost coin, Jesus concludes by saying, essentially, that heaven rejoices over the one sinner who repents. Luke 15:7, 10.

Then, Jesus tells another story about a younger son. One day, Jesus says, he approached his father and said, “Father, give me my share of the estate,” (Luke 15:12), which means, ‘I wish you were dead, give me what’s mine.’

As a father, I couldn’t imagine ever hearing those words from my boys. Nothing would break a father’s heart more than hearing those words.

Yet, everytime we grab onto the bait, that’s what we say to our Heavenly Father. I don’t need you.I want to live life my way.

At some point in this young man’s life, he reached for the bait of greed, selfishness, rage, pleasure, pride, idolatry, who knows - insert your favorite bait here - anyone of these or others could fit the bill.

Jesus doesn’t specify what led up to that moment between the Father and the younger son because, quite frankly, he didn’t need to.

Rather, the genius of how Jesus told this story invites all of us to find ourselves in it. Jesus creates space in this parable for all of us to see ourselves in the younger son because all of us, like the younger son, at some point in our lives, have placed our trust in the bait to fulfill us rather than in the promises of our Heavenly Father.

Whatever that young man grabbed onto [make a grab fist in one hand], he gave his whole life over to it at the cost of letting go of his Father [make a let go motion in the other hand].

He set off to a place that wasn’t his home and lost everything, Jesus says, in wild living.

It got so bad for this young man that “He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything (Luke 15:16).” He was on his own. No one cared about him. No one loved him. No one showed him any grace or mercy. He was isolated in a place that he didn’t belong.

He was lower than the pigs and longed for their slop to fill his hunger.

***In that moment, Jesus says, “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. Luke 15:17-20

In the Greek text, the most literal translation of ‘to his senses’ is the reflexive pronoun ‘to himself.’

In his darkest, most shameful moment, the young man came to himself through the following ways:

Through the:

realization about the severity of his consequences. He wasted everything and now risked losing his own life to starvation and disease. His own emotional health dropped so low that he suffered the most shameful disregard to want the slop of pigs. He went from the palace to the pig pen and came to himself by coming to the end of himself. He came to the end of his pride to see himself as he truly is.

In the pig pen, nothing was hidden. He was found out and realized who he truly was: a man in need of someone to save him. Which led him to the…

recognition of his true identity as one made in the image of his Father, as his Father’s son. When he came to himself, he discovered that he wasn’t his own. He couldn’t live his own life by himself however he wanted without consequence to himself and others. He belonged to his Creator, His Father, who made him in his own image and calls him good and calls him his son. Now, this young man needed his father’s merciful salvation.

You have been made in God’s image, too. Did you know that you share His likeness?

So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

His essence is in you.

You aren’t simply the sum of dirt and dust rolled up together.

You are intentional, you have a purpose, and you were fearfully and wonderfully made.

Last, in his darkest, most shameful moment, the young man came to himself through the…

remembrance of the most important relationship in his life: his father.

The son remembered how his father fairly provided for his workers and thought, perhaps, that same fairness might extend to him in mercy.

So he got up and went to his father. Jesus says.

And you can imagine that walk home...

Some of you have made that same journey yourself, rehearsing what words you would say when you saw your father or mother… or loved ones… or friends… to confess that you grabbed onto some bait that ended up hurting yourself and others.

We’ve all been there, and since Jesus is the one telling this story, then, obviously, he knows that. He gets us. He knows that when we come to ourselves and that awful realization that we have been holding onto something that we shouldn’t be, he knows that one of the first emotions that we will feel is fear and shame.

Fear and shame leads to all kinds of wrong things, but before the younger son could think or do any of those things, Jesus tells us about the father, and says:

[[[pause]]]

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him - which means that he must have been waiting for his son - and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” Luke 15:20

Imagine that!

The father’s love never wavered through his son’s wandering, and God’s love never wavers through ours.

In that culture, for an older man to run was extremely humiliating and shameful.

Yet, the father hiked up his robe and ran anyway because his heart was "filled with compassion” and salvation for his son who had returned home!

During that time, if a Jewish son lost his inheritance outside the village community, then he would become subject to a ceremony called the Kezazah, in which the villagers would have broken a large pot at the young man’s feet, yelled at him, ridiculed him, and cut him off from the village.

Out of his compassionate, waiting heart, however, the Father made his son’s shame his own and literally saved his son by the forgiveness of his embrace.

The Father in Jesus’ parable is an illustration of our Good, Good Heavenly Father, who entered into our world through the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. His blood shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins covers us like a Father’s hug and restores us safe at home with our Heavenly Father.

Jesus closes this story with the father declaring to all of those within the sound of his voice, “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Luke 15:24

For those of you who have been in the far country - in the form of alcohol or drug addiction, pornography use, greed and materialism, or the pride of life that lures every person - then you know that a real enemy exists in the far country who desires nothing more than to steal, kill, and destroy you.

In fact, the Apostle Peter describes it like this in his first letter to the church, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

There’s a Father, however, who made each one of us in his own image and covers us by the sacrifice that Christ Jesus made for us on the cross.

We are no longer slaves to sin. Paul says. That bait’s not holding onto us, we’re holding onto it, and that’s good news, because we have the power to let go! For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. Romans 6:6-7

The phrase that Paul uses “When we died with Christ” refers to the image of baptism. In baptism, our lives descend into the watery grave, and then rise out of the water as a symbol of new life in Christ Jesus.

Baptism symbolizes the transformation of our lives from death to life and declares that sin holds no power in our lives!

By itself, sin has no power over you.

[[[pause]]]

The trap doesn’t keep us stuck; we keep ourselves stuck, and whenever we lose sight of this, then we give undue power and authority to the things of this world that Jesus already conquered.

The victorious power of Christ’s resurrection disarmed the powers and principalities and the sin bait in this world from controlling you.

Sin has no power over you. Shame has no hold on you. For all of those who repent, as Jesus said, they are made free and given life everlasting, beginning here and now, forever.

The younger son in the third story demonstrated what Jesus described in the two previous stories: repentance.

What did Jesus say about repentance? That heaven rejoices over the one sinner who repents!

When you think about repentance, what images come to mind? Punishment, fear, regret, pain.

But what do these three parables of Jesus have in common?

They each tell of finding what was lost.

According to the heart of the Father, as we see in the life of Jesus, repentance doesn’t mean what this world makes it out to mean. Rather, it means being found.

In the Greek, repentance literally means “to turn,” and when we turn to Jesus, we won’t be smacked or ridiculed or made to earn it. Instead, we will be greeted by the Father’s embrace and given a kiss and made new and restored to His house…

All done by the forgiveness of our sin through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

Today, if you find yourself holding onto a sin bait that’s been stealing from your soul but you fear letting go of it because of what might happen to you, then friend, brother, sister…

Repent today and be found in the loving embrace of your Father!

Repentance isn’t shame, it’s life!

Repentance is life!

And the love of it all is that you get to decide. No one else can decide for you, not even God. Your parents can’t decide for you. Your kids or spouse can’t decide for you. Only you can decide for yourself. God has given you the freedom to decide for God. True love doesn’t force. True love waits and risks.

And for your Father, you are worth the wait and the risk.

So today who’s holding onto who? Are you holding onto the bait of sin and death? Or are you being held in the nail-scarred hands of the one who gave his own life for you so that you might live forever with your Father?!

In the AA manual for recovery, better known as the Big Book, the opening paragraph of step 3 says,

Practicing step 3 is like the opening of a door which to all appearances is still closed and locked. All we need is a key, and the decision to swing the door open. There is only one key, and it is called willingness. Once unlocked by willingness, the door opens almost of itself, and looking through it, we shall see a pathway beside which is an inscription. It reads: “This is the way to a faith that works.”

We call a faith that works one that trusts in Jesus, and the willingness to open the door is the step of repentance. The first two steps are admittance and belief, but the third step is the step of action.

Jesus said to John in the Revelation,

“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne.” Revelation 3:20-21.

Jesus is the one and only victor, but because of his great love for you, he is inviting you to share in the victory with him! He is knocking on your door to usher you to victory, so… Let go, repent, turn away from the sin bait, answer the door, and invite Jesus into your life as a restoring healer and trustworthy coach.

What do you need in a healer? Someone who can restore you back to health, who understands your body and how it works, and can prescribe the good medication that you need.

Jesus is like a restoring healer, who gets you, knows you, and can prescribe the right medicine to touch exactly the places in your life that need healing.

What do you need in a coach? Someone who can guide you with wisdom and help you become your best and most complete self!

Jesus is like a trustworthy coach who knows how to push you and grow you, which may feel uncomfortable for a season, but won’t ever break you or lead you astray.

He gets you. He knows you, so today, decide for Jesus and invite him into your life as a restoring healer and trustworthy coach.