Stop Trying
On November 20, we finished the sermon series about “The Inside-Out, Upside-Down Gospel.” During this series, we considered the fact that the institutionalized “gospel” has been so co-opted by the Kingdom of Earth that the good news of Jesus sounds counterintuitive to our habits of thought. What is supposed to make sense in how we’ve been told to live out our faith makes no sense at all. The Bible challenges us to stop trying the same old stuff and “take hold of the life that really is life.” (1 Tim-othy 6:19)Many of us, if not most, are tired of the same old thing. So how do you take hold of the life that really is life? First of all, you have to stop trying. Stop trying means that we must stop trying to substitute the way the Kingdom of Earth urges us to understand what our faith is all about. These sermons encouraged us to stop trying to do those things that we have been told to do:
· Stop trying to fix our lives. Following Jesus is about a new life. The new life is real life. Fixing our old lives is not the same as the new life.
· Stop trying to apply the Bible to life. The Bible is not a tool to apply to the life we have already planned. Instrumentalism (using the Bible as a tool) is a backwards faith. Instead, we should try to apply our lives to the Bible.
· Stop trying to apply common sense to faith. Common sense is a lot of hooey. Common sense cancels itself out by offering contradictory advice. Instead, faith embraces an uncommon sense.
· Stop trying to find God’s will for our lives. God does not have a plan for us to approve. What God offers has to be taken on faith. It requires that we trust God one step at a time.
· Stop trying to bargain with God. There is no substitute for what God invites us to do. That is the difference between belief (acceptance of certain facts) and faith (being willing to accept what God invites us to do). The invitation to us is “just do it”.
· Stop trying to plan according to our own resources. God promises everything we need in abundance. Doing God’s will requires more than our own resources because God wants the glory. Realizing that fact takes the onus off ourselves and urges us to yield to God’s will.
· Stop trying to make comfort and security our goals. Comfort and security are by-products of a different goal. God promises us that if we seek his kingdom first, he will provide for our needs, including comfort and security. In abundance!
· Stop trying to compare what others believe to what we believe. We are not to set ourselves up as judges of others. It’s their needs, not their beliefs, that matter. If they are not against us, then they are for us.
· Stop trying to put everybody on a spectrum. That’s what the Sadducees and the Pharisees were always doing. Jesus was neither a Sadducee nor a Pharisee nor a middle-of-the-roader. Jesus rejected any Kingdom of Earth spectrum. As Jesus’ disciples, we should do the same.
· Stop trying to impose your preferences on other people. Love does not insist on its own way (1 Cor. 13). The point is not our will, but God’s.
· Stop trying to redefine the past, control the present, or design the future. We are to accept ourselves for who we are, and accept others for who they are. What that means is that we have to relinquish control, or certainly relenquish our idea that we must control everybody else.
· Stop trying to be good. Being good is not the same as being holy, which means set apart for a special purpose. Doing good is what we are commanded; that is our special purpose. And the ultimate question is this: are we going to accept God’s invitation, or not?
Our charge is to stop trying to make our faith, and the world, a result of our own will, and to yield ourselves to God’s will…that it may be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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