Developing a Trusting Dependence on God

Growth is always a process

We are continuing a series of messages where we're looking through the gospels and considering the way Jesus asked so many questions. In all of the dialogues recorded, he asks over 300 questions and directly answers only 3. In this series we're looking at what he asked, why he did it does often, and what he was accomplishing…

There's one instance where I count eight questions in five short verses, in quick-fire, rapid succession. Jesus seems a bit frustrated… they've had a long day of feeding well over four thousand people with a happy meal, and now they are in a boat together heading somewhere else. They had forgotten to bring any food for themselves, and they are utterly confused about something Jesus had said…

Mark 8:17–21 (NIV) — 17 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” “Twelve,” they replied. 20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” They answered, “Seven.” 21 He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

What's Jesus doing here? Is he just expressing frustration? I don't think so. He's not giving into self-pity, he's retreating into a victim mentality.

I think he's doing what any good teacher does from time to time. Jesus is exposing weaknesses in how they are thinking, how they are approaching life. He's highlighting the differences between life as they've know it and life in the Kingdom of God that he keeps talking about. This is part of the process of spiritual formation.

Growth always involves a process…

You didn't get to where you are today, as a human who eats, without going through a process, right‽ You began with your mom's milk, or formula…eventually your body needs more nutrients and you graduate to already-been-chewed (baby) food, that stuff is highly motivating to develop teeth so that you can get on to the good stuff… and eventually you get on the good stuff like steak and fresh asparagus, or my homemade deep dish pizza! But it's a process to get there.

Spiritual growth, spiritual formation is a process as well. Jesus initially invites the disciples to simply follow him, but as they do, month after month, the heat gets turned up and near the end of his time with them physically (John 14–16), he tells them that they will probably be killed as a result of following him. That's not where he started!

And throughout the process, Jesus constantly invites them, just like he's inviting you and I, to continue to develop increasing trust/faith/confidence in him and in his way of life.

You may think I’m being silly or pendantent

Here's a quote I read online this week…

"God calls us to go on a pilgrimage, but we'd rather be tourists. A pilgrim is led by God into the unknown and invited to trust. A tourist just wants to sightsee on his or her own terms." Rich Villodas

God is inviting you and I to go on a pilgrimage rather than on a site-seeing tour.

I want to look at another passage where Jesus is in a boat with the disciples, a passage that is recorded in all three gospels. Its something that they all remembered quite clearly…

Mark 4:35–41 (NIV)

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

If you’ve been around the Vineyard a little bit, you’ll recognize this passage because it was just a few months ago that Brenda taught us some really good stuff out of here.

Today I want to look at it differently, I want to look at the process of formation that God is inviting us into through the main questions that are being asked… here’s the first one:

“Don’t you care if we drown?”

These are experienced fishermen, as you’re probably aware. There’s a furious storm has come up, the boat is being swamped…

The disciples are probable climbing over one another in an effort to keep the boat from capsizing as the waves are crashing over the sides… and they notice Jesus peacefully sleeping away in the stern.

They probably were doing everything they know to do before they woke the carpenter turned rabbi whose fast asleep.

And its worth noting that they found themselves in this situation because the followed the direction of Jesus…he’s the one who decided to cross the lake that evening.

One of the things we regularly see in scripture is that God allows his people to be tested.

Any dictionary of biblical themes has lists of passages highlighting God allowing our faith to be tested to build our character and to prove the genuineness of our faith.

1 Peter 1:6–7 (NIV) — 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 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.

James 1:2–4 (NIV) — 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

God allow challenges to his people's lives to develop their character and to test them.

This is not a comfortable idea for many of us…and yet we see it throughout the scripture.

We think life is difficult enough as it is, we don't need something extra. But a lot of the time life itself is the test!

Why would God allow this?

Listen, in the biblical narrative, when God selects someone (a group pf someone's) to bless them, to appoint them as image bearers, as a representative of himself…

and gives them opportunity and blessing and abundance, and responsibility—the opportunities become the test, the abundant trees of the garden become the test of whether they will trust God to give them wisdom, or whether they'll take wisdom by doing what's good in their own eyes.

Remember the process? We begin the journey, the pilgrimage, if you will, by surrendering the ownership of our lives to Christ. He’s the king. And we mistakenly think that’s the end of the surrendering, but its just the beginning of the journey of surrender.

Along the way, as life feels a bit insecure, the question emerges,

“Will you radically surrender and trust God to create security for you, or will you work to create your own security?”

“Will you radically surrender your resources ands trust God to provide for you needs, or will you work to create your own storehouses of provision?”

“Will you radically surrender your relational needs to God and trust him to meet you in you loneliness, or will you just grab the first available human who comes into your life and make do?”

Jesus, don’t you care that I’m going to drown?

Jesus, why is this happening to me, don’t you care about my needs?

What you’re version of that question?

“Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

So Jesus gets up and rebukes, scolds the wind and tells the waves to quiet, be still! He talks to the weather and it obeys!

"Bad storm, down boy!"

And then he rebukes the disciples.

We’ll get back to the whole talking to the weather in just a moment. Why does he rebuke the disciples?

Some people think its because the storm wasn’t that bad and they should’ve been able to handle it.

Other’s think they should have had more faith and rebuked the storm themselves.

Others think Jesus just woke up on the wrong side of the boat!

The storm was bad enough that the boat is being swamped, if they hadn’t of woken him he could’ve ended up waking up while being tossed overboard.

Maybe they were supposed to have confidence that Jesus' number wasn’t up yet, and that God would’ve protected him.

But I think the problem is different… they didn’t approach Jesus in faith, they approached Jesus in fear. Listen to Conrad Gempf,

"The disciples defect is not the belief that the storm is deadly, nor the belief that Jesus could change things, as implied by their waking him and virtually blaming him. Their beliefs are in order. It is their faith that seems to have deserted them—their trust in and devotion to their master."

"The real problem is their attitude toward Jesus. 'Don't you care about me at all?' is not a question you ask someone you're really connecting with, but rather a pretty good indicator that you're not as close as you could be."

Jesus Asked, Conrad Gempf, p.86-7.

Christianity has never actually been about a checklist of believing the right things so that you can pass a test at the end of your life and gain admittance into heaven when you die. I’m not sure just what that is, but it’s not biblical Christianity.

I wonder if we gravitate towards a hollowed-out Christianity because a real life, a living breathing confidence in God is way more challenging than a true-false test at the end.

We gravitate towards a being tourists… making cool instagram accounts of all the places we visit with Jesus but never really engaging with him in meaningful ways.

Biblical Christianity is actually centered around developing a deeper intimacy with God that flows into more and more confidence that he cares about us and loves us to the core of our being, and that we’re invited to participate with him, what he’s doing in the world today.

we’re meant to experience an interactive, experiential, moment-by-moment actual intimate relationship with God.

Listen to the promise of intimacy in these words of Jesus…

John 14:15–21 (NIV) — 15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

John 14:23 (NIV) — 23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

I want to encourage you to not fall into the trap of treating God like a disappointing person. Do you know what I mean?

How do you respond to a disappointing person, a person who just always disappoints you?

Could be a family member—you expect a compliment but you always get a dig

What do you do? You lower the bar of expectation. I protect myself from being hurt. Don’t expect much. When you never expect anything great you never get disappointed.

Some of you think your Christian life is going great—you’re never disappointed—no highs or lows, you’re so mature. I’m not sure that’s a mark of maturity!

Have you ever read the Psalms? I see a person who was way up and way down. Why? He was looking to God for something great, justice in the world, for revival, vindication of the righteous

If you look to God for something great you’ll be up and down a bit—you’ll make yourself vulnerable. It hurts when God doesn’t come through on your timetable.

To have faith means that we have high expectations of God

Alright, let’s get pack to the story, the wind and the waves have been scolded and are now quiet… that disciples have been chastised… and here’s our final question:

“Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Here’s the thing, they have been following Jesus for a bit, they think they have a bit of an idea about what’s going to happen, and he just blew their minds!

They’ve seen God heal fevers, and cast our demons. He healed and man with a shriveled hand, and perhaps a person with leprosy… but talking to the weather and watching it obey…that’s just over the top.

Have you ever experienced feeling like there are somethings within God’s capacity to do something about and somethings are too big even for God himself?

I want to talk about the process God often takes us through as we grow in him.

Through his questions and through his actions, Jesus is dismantling, he’s rearranging their way of thinking…

Like the first disciples, we have been formed over the course of our lives. We have developed way of things, of seeing and interacting with the world, ways of responding to all the various things that come our way, ways of being safe and ways of evaluating and engaging in the kinds of risks we deem appropriate.

Through the process of Spirit-led formation, God is recalibrating our lives, and what we think we love, he’s helping us to unlearn the ways-of-being we’ve absorbed and adopted along the way.

Our very identity is being challenged as we follow Jesus, our fundamental allegiances, our core convictions, the passions we hold onto to define ourselves—it’s all being challenged.

And the process goes like this… there’s a stage where you feel pretty good about life. This stage is called orientation. Your experiencing equilibrium, feeling secure to a degree, well-settled—everything in our lives makes sense, is comfortable, reliable, and predictable.

What you understand about God makes sense to you. You can see how many of the pieces fit together. You’re comfortable.

But then, you see him scold the weather, commend it to calm down…and it does!

And you begin to experience a bit of disorientation. Who is this person in my boat!?

It’s the feeling of instability, disorder, disorientation.

Lots of things in our lives bring this kind of experience on…

It could be something large…the failure of a marriage, the diagnosis of a doctor, a financial crisis, the loss of a job. Or it may be a cross word from a friend or loved one, a disappointing letter or email, a sharp criticism. It could be something more global in nature, a war in another country, a global pandemic, the sense the world is falling apart before your very eyes. It could come from an overwhelming sense of loneliness, a sense of being rejected or unloved.

Anything that gives you the sense that life is not whole can give you a sense of being dislocated, disoriented.

Expressions of pain, grief, dismay and anger that life is not good are power expressions of the experience of disorientation.

You learn something new about God from the scriptures that you hadn't noticed before—God's anger or his jealousy, for instance—and it disorients your understanding of God's love and forgiveness.

Some folks today talk about deconstructing their faith…this age old process is a part of what they are experiencing. I’m leaning and experiencing things to just don’t fit into the way I’d understood God before.

Who is this man? Even the wind and the waves obey him!

The other movement in our soul is from disorientation to new/reorientation, its moving into a new orientation that is quite different from the status quo we'd previously known.

this is not a return to normalcy, a going back to what we had known before as if nothing had happened.

The disciples will forever see Jesus differently then they had before.

Rather, there's an experience of God making things new—and it always comes as a surprise, a gracious gift.

\The resurrection was such an instance, The experience we have of the infilling of the Spirit prompting us to pray for a person whose hurting, and seeing God bring his merciful healing is also. Gifts of friendship and service and love within a community like this. The beauty we experience in nature, in art and food and music…and in one another that we hadn't seen before…

Lots of folks throughout the centuries have written about the process of spiritual formation we all go through. They may use different vocabulary, different frameworks to describe the process… but that fact that we grow through a process—sometimes slowly, sometimes more quickly—that process of formation is often written and talked about.

I like to think of it not just as a process of formation, it's actually a process of counter-formation, or reformation that is always renewing.

Jesus is taking his disciples through a three-year process, that begins with him being physically present, and continues by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Many people have described the process having distinct stages… describing the stages with words like: orientation, disorientation, and new/reorientation.

(Location, Dislocation, Relocation; Order, Disorder, and New/Reorder; the Old Country and the New Country; the stability of being on the shore, the instability of climbing into the boat, and the stability again of stepping onto the other shore)

Orientation:

need some sort of explanation of this from a Christian growth point of view…

Disorientation: All of us know the feeling of chaos, disorder, instability, disorientation.