We don’t grow to independence from Jesus, we grow into complete and total dependence on Jesus. What on earth where the disciples doing while Jesus was on the mountain? Jesus’ response to the situation is the only evidence we have in Luke. He calls them faithless and twisted. What ever they were doing they were not trusting God in it and they where twisted. I think they were trying to operate in their own strength. Matthew identifies that Jesus had told them that they could not cast out the demon because of their little faith. So the issue here is ministering by faith. Trusting God for his strength and his power. We never outgrow our need for Jesus. We never get to the point when we can stop praying. We never get to the point when we have the power in us independently of the Holy Spirit. No, the Christian life is not a matter of growing into independence but of learning complete trust and dependence on God. This is hard for us because we tend to picture growth in life as characterized by independence. The mature man or women is independent, strong, self reliant. We hear people tell us that Christianity is a crutch for the weak. Of course the strong are those who don’t need Jesus. This is all a bunch of nonsense. It assumes a world in which we where not made for God. The bible tells us that God made us for himself. We where made to know God. We where placed in a world created by God. We are more dependent on God than we have ever thought. Have you ever pondered the ‘givenness’ of creation? Truly we are dependent on God for everything from food to water to air. What is shocking from a Biblical worldview is the very idea of the independence of any part of God’s creation.
We need to pause here for a clarification. This is not a loss of personality. There is no idea in the Bible that we stop being ourselves. I am not saying that all is one and that we lose ourselves eventually in the oneness of the universe. I am pointing out the Biblical truth that Jesus upholds the universe by the word of his power. We are dependent on God for everything physical and spiritual. Again, this is not a lose of personality. Instead we are established and enabled by God’s provision to be ourselves as he has created us to be. The fact that we are ourselves and not one another or God does not mean that we are ourselves apart from God.
This is not a negative thing, it is reality. Apart from Jesus we can do nothing. There is no path in Christianity that is you growing to eventual independence where you don’t need or trust Jesus for strength and power and help and everything. Remember that we are fickle creatures. Jesus walks up the mountain and as he receeds from sight the disciples start to trust themselves. Stay close to Jesus. Remember him, bring him to the front of your thought’s as often as you can. Trust him, lean on him, draw strength from him, pray in his name, pray to him.
But why don’t we rely on him in everything? Sometimes it’s because I don’t believe that he is in charge of everything. I doubt his Kingship, so I take things into my own hands and get them done. I think we see this most vividly in the instance of Abraham and Hagar. Abraham wants a male heir, and so does Sarah. They take things into their own hands and attempt to accomplish God’s promise on their own. Maybe this is where you are at with God. Maybe you are impatient with him or you just don’t believe that he is actually in control of all things so you feel the need to do things on your own.
Sometimes I don’t rely Jesus because I don’t believe that he wants to help me. I doubt his priesthood. How can Jesus actually want to help me? Haven’t I sinned again, in the same way that I have so many times? How could he help me? How many days and weeks have you spent on your own, far from God, because you have doubted his love? Maybe you have come to doubt God’s love, or maybe you are overwhelmed with a sense of your own sinfulness.
Sometimes I don’t rely on Jesus because I think I know better. I doubt him as my teacher, as my prophet. Have you ever avoided prayer because you knew what God was going to say to you? Have you ever knowingly sinned because you were sure that what you had in mind was better than what God said? Or how often do we go through an entire day not praying only to realize in the evening how incredibly arrogant we have been?
But Jesus is in control of all things. He is our King, and he rules in power. He upholds the very universe you see and move through by the word of his power. He has authority even to humble himself as a servant to the point of death in becoming our priest. He came and died on a cross for us. He died there on that cross for me, propitiating the wrath of God by taking my sins upon himself. He bore our sins in his body on the tree. And he rose again, God has declared him to be the Son of God in power according to his resurrection from the dead. He had spoken the truth, he had interpreted Scripture rightly, he is the one who reveals the Father. He is our prophet, the one who teaches us.
Next, Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to be delivered into the sons of men. He is going to be killed. This would have run contrary to their expectations. They would have expected a conquering Messiah, not a crucified one. The disciples have a basic misunderstanding about what Jesus is doing, and their expectations are going to be crushed. A couple of them would later confess on a road outside of Jerusalem that they had thought that Jesus was going to be the one to redeem Israel. But they were sure at that point that he had not done so, for he had been crucified. Maybe we should take a moment to note that the disciples were not wrong in thinking that Jesus would rule as king. Nor were they wrong in believing that he would one day conquer the enemies of God. They were confused though about how he would do it. They could not see it.
What is so interesting here is that Luke mentions that the disciples don’t understand what is going on and they are afraid to ask. The disciples needed to know that Jesus’ plans were different than theirs, and that Jesus’ plans would be painful and hard. They would not understand until Jesus had risen from the dead. He had to explain to them how it all worked. And they were afraid to ask about what Jesus had told them. Where they afraid to face the truth of Jesus’ death? Where they just afraid to ask because they felt stupid? As we look back on this story already knowing the end what do we learn?
A couple of things:
1. Having expectations is not wrong. If you don’t have any expectations for the Christian life then I am confused. There are those people who give up on having any expectations at all in life. But having expectations is not wrong. There is nothing in scripture that tells us we should not have any expectations for this life, but there is plenty in scripture that tells us to hold our expectations lightly. We so often get it wrong. I hope you have expectations for Christ’s return. But there have been many who have believed that Jesus would return by a specific date or on a specific date. We don’t know when Jesus will return so we hold firm to the fact of it but lightly to our understanding of when it might happen. And especially when it comes to personal issues, we can be so far off. I never expected to be living in Quebec, pastoring a church. I never expected to go through losing most of our stuff in a hurricane. I just never expected it. You have examples from your own life. Times when you have felt afraid to even ask God about what he was doing.
2. Jesus will not break your expectations because he came to hurt you, but because quite honestly we don’t know want is best for ourselves or the world. I know this sounds like daddy knows best. But in this case it’s true. Our Father really does know what is best. Not just for us, but for the whole world. We have such a tendency to see only ourselves. Is it at all possible that some of the difficult situations we have endured have resulted in good for others? Is it at all possible that we cannot understand why God does some of the things in this world because we cannot see the whole? I think so. I can imagine that the disciples would have thought the idea of Jesus dying on the cross to be last thing that they or their nation needed.
3. Jesus does not lead us into hard situations and then leave us to work it out on our own. Notice how he does not drop his disciples and tell them to get real. Notice how he doesn’t dismiss them because they have such a long way to go in understanding God’s plans in the world. No, he is there with them, teaching and leading them all the way up to the cross. And then immediately after his resurrection he is there teaching and leading them. Jesus does not leave us or forsake us, not for anything. If you have sinned and feel far, come and confess and get on with following Jesus. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. He is faithful to erase our unfaithfulness and righteous in declaring us forgiven. I don’t know about you, but I am encouraged by the pattern of growth, with all it’s stumbles and mistakes, that we see in the disciples lives throughout the Gospels and Acts. Not that I think I am okay because they were also sinners. I am okay because Jesus died for me. No, I rejoice that God sticks with us, carries us, teaches us, he does not let us go even when we have so much to learn, so much growth left. And honestly, there is not a person in this room who is so far along in the Christian life that they could live up to the example of Jesus. If you asked the holiest, most Christ like person you know if they have a long way to go in becoming like Jesus they would most definitely say Yes!
Side note: If you are experiencing deep depression, I am not saying that there is an easy fix. Please don’t hear that. If you are in clinical depression, which is a disease, please consider getting medical help. There is no shame in going to the doctor to have a broken bone set and put in a cast. There is no shame in going to the doctor to have a severe infection treated. There is no shame in my book in going to the doctor for treatment for severe depression. And for those of us who know someone who is in depression: be gentle. Be easy on them. Help them. Do not condemn them. Do not fall into the temptation of thinking that they just need to get their act together and trust Jesus. If they are clinically depressed they need help.
4. Notice how the disciples stick with Jesus, even when confused. Here is the great secret that really is no secret at all. Stick with Jesus. Trust him. Dust yourself off and keep following. Get up out of the guilt you are sitting in and start walking. Confess your sins and move on. Get back in your bible, get back in prayer, start living each and every morning with the intention to honor Jesus in all you do even when you go to bed each night knowing how much and often you have failed your Lord. But he has not failed you! He has conquered sin through his cross, death through his resurrection, and he will never leave you or forsake you. Stick with him!
5. The very thing that the disciples were afraid to ask about was what they needed most. Our faithlessness is sin. We need to see that. We want to go easy on the disciples because we see ourselves in them. But God has not lowered his standards. Faithlessness is sin, an offense against a holy and righteous Judge. Instead of lowering his standards God raised up his son on a cross to bear the sins of the world. And after Jesus had turned away the wrath of God by substituting himself in our place on that cross God raised him up from the dead victorious. Trust him! He has provided forgiveness for you. He has provided righteousness for you. When we trust Jesus we are given his righteousness. We stand before the Father clothed in the righteousness of Christ Jesus, which includes his perfect faithfulness. Repent, turn away from your faithlessness, trust in his death and resurrection.
