Jonathan Evans

Listening is an act of faith

 

Listening is an act of faith. It is being awake to God and his speaking personally to us. It is being aware of God and that he is personally present with us. Wakefulness, watchfulness are conditions for listening. Too often, though, we are disciples asleep, unaware, unconvinced that God is in this place.

 

"Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me?” (John 14:9)  

 

It is much easier to think of faith as an act of speaking on our part, of God waiting on us. And so it often is. Just as often, though, it is an act of not speaking on our part, of our waiting on God. The faith to wait is as vibrant as the faith to move.

 

In fact, our faith both moves and is moved. By the time my faith moves to listen to God, I realize God has already made the first move and drawn me to himself.

 

In many ways, listening by faith is like surrendering by faith. By the time God asks you to surrender all, you realize that you’ve already given him all. This last act of surrender is simply the culmination of an ongoing series of acts, of surrendering a little bit of yourself at a time.

 

So listening is ongoing. Little by little knowing more and more. Those who wait until they come to a sermon to listen for God will find it difficult to hear him. But those whose listening is ongoing daily will come and find it easy to hear him.  

 

For all of us who come to the preaching of God’s Word, we can either sit and wait for something to grab our attention or we can come already attentive to “God with us". We can come fully awake, aware, and ready to listen in on the ongoing conversation of God with us, to receive the living and active word of God deep into our hearts. 

 

“Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.” (Luke 8:18)

And we can do no better

 

The desire to do something the right way can cripple the desire to do the right thing. The fear of getting it wrong strangles the conviction of doing what is right. So the mind and heart are convinced that it is better to do nothing than to do something and get it wrong.

 

But to do what is right is sometimes to do what is right simply because it is right to do. We do the thing that seems right in the manner that seems best at the moment, and we can do no better. We cannot control consequences, only actions. If God in his wisdom gives actions, then in his wisdom he can take their consequences and make something good of them. 

 

God does work all things together for good. "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." (Proverbs 16:9). "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." (Proverbs 16:33) His is the wisdom and sovereignty and power, ours is the obedience and trust and rest.

Revival: Power

A spontaneous gift is sudden and unexpected to the recipient not to the giver. Revival is the sudden and unexpected outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It’s sudden and unexpected to the church and to the world, but not to God.

 

THE HEALING

 

God still does “wonderful things” (Matthew 21:15), powerful things, today. This is my deep conviction born out of a time of deep cynicism. A time when I stumbled over an exposed “revivalist” and fell into doubt and criticism, and intellectualized and theologized away all demonstrations and manifestations of God’s power today. This despite having had such experiences as an early teen. “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) 

 

In revival, God’s ordinary work is done to an extraordinary degree. It’s an unusual season of life for the church, not the usual day to day activity in the life of the church. Jesus is always saving, but in revival he saves in an exponential way. Whereas a local church may see 6 people turn to Jesus in a year, in a season of revival they will see dozens, hundreds, even thousands. And whereas a local church may see a healing or a person powerfully encounter God in the span of a few months, in revival they see manifold demonstrations of God’s power almost daily.

 

Still, when we talk about God’s power, we must talk about more than power. We must talk about people’s lives being touched by the Living God.

 

THE HEALED

 

When Jesus goes in to the temple in Jerusalem, word gets out. Somehow, a blind and a lame man find their way in. The blind and the lame, though, are a people group  excluded from ever entering the temple. They come anyway, and Jesus not only welcomes them, he heals them in the very place they are not supposed to be (Matthew 21:14-15).

 

After Jesus’ resurrection, his two disciples, Peter and John, are going up to the temple where, at the gate, they find a lame man asking for alms. Peter looks at him and says, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (Acts 3:1-7) 

 

Jesus heals inside and outside the temple. God’s power resides in and flows from the true temple and meeting-point with God, Jesus Christ. Any person in any place at any time can be made well and whole (whether or not they will be).

 

Yet, we must follow the gift back to the Giver (Luke 17:18), because we can easily get caught up in power as the ultimate end. But God demonstrates his power in order to confirm his message of the gospel (Mark 16:20) and point to the forgiveness and salvation found nowhere else but in Jesus Christ (Matthew 9:5-6). The greatest miracle is the love of God in the heart of man. The highest joy is knowing God, not working miracles (Matthew 7:22; Luke 10:20). The world might use its power to control what we love. But Jesus always uses his power to show us his love for us.  

 

THE HEALER

 

How did Jesus heal and do mighty works? By the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. (Luke 3:22; 4:1, 14). So, how would his disciples heal and do mighty works? By the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5) 

 

In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples and the church, as he did upon Jesus at the beginning, and Peter explains what is happening: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he (Jesus!) has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” (Acts 2:33) 

 

This pouring out is a “power” to be “witnesses” (Acts 1:8). But our “witness” is not passive observance from the outside; it’s active participation on the inside. The Holy Spirit is the key witness to the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus (Acts 5:32). His coming-as-pouring is a testifying to Jesus living and reigning today; an empowering of the church for the advancing and completing of Jesus’ mission today; a participating in the renewing and transforming life of Jesus today. 

 

In all our efforts we are "blind and lame" without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. But with Him all the possibilities, promises, and blessings of life found in Jesus are made a reality.

 

SPRING FLOWERS

 

When Jesus came to earth, the kingdom of God was “at hand”. It was spatially found in the physical body of Jesus. But now that he has ascended, the kingdom of God is at hand in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot picture Jesus as being far off somewhere in heaven, but rather as being near to us in the person of the Holy Spirit, dwelling with and within us. 

 

Revival comes to dry, barren ground with rains of refreshing and streams of healing. It brings the Spring flowers, radiant and beautiful (signs and wonders, manifestations and demonstrations of God’s power), but its aim is the mature fruit (the transformation of lives) of the Summer and Fall.

Beyond words, but not apart from words

 

Dear Christian,

 

We read the Bible to remember that God With Us (Matthew 1:23) has acted in history, in time, and what he has done in Jesus. We see that we're a part of a story that is timeless, that doesn't end in time, on earth, but is written from eternity to eternity. It's a story bigger than any one of us that yet includes each one of us.

 

We read the Bible to realize that God's activity is not something centered around my individual life but someone focused exclusively on Jesus Christ: God Himself is set on exalting Jesus on earth from beginning to end – past, present, future.

 

We read the Bible to recognize that my life and yours are created, formed, and made to be a reflection of the greatness, majesty, and glory of God. Our life saved from sin is being recreated, reformed, remade into the perfect image of God, Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3), and is called into and empowered for full participation in his kingdom. We not only read this in the word of God but we live this through The Word of God, Jesus Christ (Revelation 19:13; John 1:1, 14), to whom the whole Bible is pointing and in whom the whole Bible is fulfilled.

 

We read the Bible to respond to a God who speaks. Exceeding, and more exhilarating than, a perfect day is hearing one word from God. Anyone in a significant relationship knows that conversation is better than a thousand gifts and that a thousand gifts without a meaningful conversation are meaningless. To listen to the voice of the one you love, of the one who loves you, is fulfilling beyond words, but not apart from words.

 

Listen closely, read slowly.

Have faith in God, not in time

 

If God promises me that he will do something "tomorrow”, I will likely wait patiently for today to pass. But if God is more vague and says, “soon”, I will likely become impatient. If I know God is going to do something anyway, what harm is there in rushing it a little? 

 

The witches have told Macbeth that he will one day become king. So why wait? Why not today? Isn't it all the same? Perhaps faith in fate is not me waiting for things to unfold but rather, in faith, acting and taking hold of things. Macbeth murders King Duncan.

 

Young David is anointed future king of Israel by the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 16:12-13). But David will wait over 20 years for this to fully come to pass. Although during those long, trying years he has several opportunities to kill the current king and cut short the waiting, he refuses. He has faith in God, not in fate or time.

 

Often we wait for God because we can’t do anything about our circumstances. But how often do we wait precisely because we can change things? The temptation to play God, to force God’s hand, to get ahead of God is attractive. Isn’t faith refusing to let things stay the way they are?

 

Time is a funny thing. We like to manage it and be productive. It makes us believe, feel that we're powerful; that we can control our lives; that we can plan for what’s coming tomorrow (James 4:13-14); that we can add hours to our days and days to our lives (Matthew 6:27; Psalm 139:16). But in the end we can't use time to impose our will, or dominate our lives, or speed things up.

 

Watching humanity exist in technologically primitive or underdeveloped cultures, we easily feel like they're wasting time. When our plans fail or our dreams take longer than we pray they will, we feel like we're "wasting time" or that "time is passing me by". But these feelings, beliefs, are often a misplacement of our trust in God; they betray our trust in our activity, busyness, productivity, technology, management. Not that these are wrong, but that they're not God's parting gift to a now mature, ready, self-sufficient humanity.

 

Has God given us everything we need, in order that we should no longer need him? Is the world and all that is in it a substitute for God, his word, his Spirit? Has he created and saved us to work, be productive, and be successful in recognition of him, a tipping of the hat, but not in worship to him, a surrendering of our life? 

 

If time is only a resource by which we seize opportunity, then how we manage it is of paramount importance. But if time is the revealing and ordering of God’s will, then how we live in time is of paramount importance.  

 

David “served the purpose of God in his own generation” (Acts 13:36), a purpose that included the times of waiting in David’s life – nearly a third of his life. Ultimately, his life, my life, your life, our time, is not for God’s purposes for us but for his purposes for us for him – his name, his glory, his will, and his kingdom. 

 

It was in the fullness of time – a fullness that includes not only the past but the present and the future – that God sent Jesus Christ into the world (Ephesians 1:10; Galatians 4:4), which means that time is not left to blind, random or automated fate, but that God is eternal, in eternity, and time is his servant, not ours.

Unselfed Gospel

 

I've sung sing it with my kids while driving:  

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

 

No question, it’s a catchy song. It’s also the guiding principle of a culture: Whatever makes me happy by making me feel good must be the right thing for me to do.  

 

Today, we believe one’s individual desires are the locus of authority and self-definition. (Long gone is any sense of individual responsibility to a larger community of which I am a part, unless I can use them to advance my own interests. Long gone is any individual commitment to sacrifice what I need or want for the good of another, unless, in the end, it gets me what I want.)

 

We consistently find this “truth” in the stories and songs of our culture. We also find this “truth” in the sermons in our churches. We hear messages telling us that not only must we believe in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, but we must also, of equal importance and necessity, believe in ourselves. God’s word and promise is dependent upon man, rooted in man, and oriented around man. Without our positive thinking and confession, God’s hands are tied. 

  

This preaching says that God demands nothing of me, because He’s chiefly concerned with making me feel good. God is sought only as a therapist, to solve my problems, to help me find fulfillment, and never inquired of as Holy God and Sovereign King. 

 

Some of the mantras of this gospel are, “Do your best”, “Believe in yourself”, “Say to yourself”, “Think positive”, “You’re a child of the Almighty”. Now, it’s true: a Christian is a child of the Almighty. But being God's child presupposes something radical, anti-culture, and now anti-church-culture: The gospel.

 

The Biblical gospel is concerned with the objective truth: God over man and man before God. A Biblical gospel preaches that God demands and deserves everything from me (love, obedience, passions, desires), because he is holy, and that I have chosen not to give it to him, because I am a sinner. 

 

The Biblical gospel presupposes God is love and God is holy, and he is never one apart from the other. Sin goes deeper than just doing bad, feeling bad, and having problems (Luke 18:10-14). There is the offense: our sin. There is the offended: God. There is the offender: you and I. There is the cost to be paid: a sacrifice. At the cross, God’s wrath and love were poured out on Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:17). In and through him, God’s holiness was upheld and his love is offered freely to all. Our salvation. 

 

The salvation offered in Jesus Christ goes deeper than just doing good things, having good feelings, and having no problems. While God’s salvation can and does change our whole lives, making them better and happier, God saves us to re-orient our lives around him, not him around us. Whatever “better and happier” looks like or feels like, it now comes as a result of denying our self and dying to our self daily (Luke 9:23).

 

In all that he has created, God can be absent nowhere but the human heart enslaved to sin. Yet, God is present nowhere else in all of creation like he is in the redeemed heart of man.  The gospel – Jesus’ death in my place – is the entry point, not the end point of the unselfed life, a life that starts with Jesus, not with the self; a life where Jesus is at the center, not the self; a life where knowing Jesus is worth the loss of everything the self holds closer (Philippians 3:8).

 

(Adapted from a longer version of this post)

The lived-in and lived-out reality of love

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:1-3)

 

Heard with our ears. Seen with our eyes. Touched with our hands. Words that describe a sensory experience. This experience wasn’t a "what" as much as it was a "who". Jesus is Who the disciples experienced – listened to, looked upon, touched. He was the “word of life”, “the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest". “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). 

 

The glory of God in Jesus Christ was what, who, the disciples proclaimed, spoke of, conversed about. Yet, not just who they’d heard with mortal ears, or seen with mortal eyes, or touched with mortal hands, but who with their entire beings they’d come to know and to understand, to receive and to believe, to follow and to obey. Like a friend who is able to describe a loved one articulately, intimately, and stunningly, in a way a stranger never could or even imagine, is the disciple who knows Jesus able to describe him to others.

 

It is one thing to know about a country from reading about it – information as facts, pictures, maps. This is the student. It is quite another thing to know about a country from having visited it – the experiences of people and conversation, food and places of significance. This is the tourist. But it is still a different thing altogether to know a country from living there – life and daily routines, roads and secret places, stories and names, struggles and victories, etc. This is the citizen.

 

As Christians, we are saved and “born again”, born from above (John 3:3; 1 Peter 1:3, 23), to live in, through, with, and for Jesus, not to read about him or visit him occasionally. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) We are now to live here, there, wherever we are “by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20); to build a home, pray, work, rest, play, dig in, root ourselves, make friends, and serve and seek the prosperity of our cities (Jeremiah 29:4-7). We are citizens of a heavenly kingdom (Philippians 3:20) that takes the necessary and daily routines, roads and secret places, stories and names, struggles and victories of our lives and communities and gives them their higher and deeper meaning and purpose in Jesus. 

 

We are citizens of this kingdom by grace, not by our works nor for our works but by the King’s work and for his works. We hear and see and embrace him by grace; he hears and sees and embraces us in mercy. And far from being a postcard or a t-shirt or a visit from there (a distant land), our lives are the lived-in/lived-out reality of him (who has come near), his love articulated and manifested in and through us.

Idolatry is a well-worn path

 

If I have an hour or three to go anywhere, I always find my way to water. Whether a stream, or a river, or the lake, there’s something in the sight, sound, and feel of the water that is satisfying to my soul. So I go there.

 

Have you ever looked at the path across a bridge, how it is faded in the middle from a thousand steps? Or down your stairs, the variation in the color of the carpet or wood? Or through the woods, how the paths are trodden and worn? 

 

As well-marked by their own footprints was the path God’s people took to worship…their idols.

 

“Look at your way in the valley” (Jeremiah 2:23), God says. The people of God had worn a path that was unmistakable in direction and undeniable in destination. God didn’t have to go looking for his people; he knew exactly where to find them.

 

When we feel sad, where do we travel to find happiness? When we feel in danger, where do we run to find security? When we feel rejected, where do we crawl to find acceptance? If we have a pressing problem or desire, we try to find our way to that place, that thing, that person, that we believe can ultimately save us. 

 

What paths are well-travelled in your life? Where do your footprints lead to most often?

 

In the end, we are all put to shame by our idols, that is, we are all embarrassed that having put all our hope in them, they failed to deliver what they promised us. All our idols “are false, and there is no breath in them.” (Jeremiah 10:14) They cannot speak to the deepest parts of us. They cannot heal our deepest hurts, satisfy our deepest longings nor deliver us from our deepest sins. 

 

But in Jesus (John 1:14-17), God’s grace is poured out towards us, and not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:10). It doesn’t leave us or abandon us or deceive us into believing what is not true. It redirects our feet, it makes a new path, it leads us into the truth of who Jesus is and who we are. In him our soul can find its deepest, truest, and fullest satisfaction forever.

Unbelief is a yearning

“I don’t believe in God,” writes Julian Barnes, “but I miss him.” Unbelief is a yearning. It leads you away from believing in certain things, but not in all things. It leads you to believe in many other ways and in many other things that are to it more believable than God. 

 

“I don’t believe in love, but I miss it,” is the self-confession of many in the heartache of another broken and lost, deep and meaningful relationship. Though they vow, “Never again”, they long for love more than ever before. So they will search for, or create, or force new ways to be loved. With a mixture of faith and doubt they knock, hoping to be invited in, and if not, to invite themselves in.

 

Saul of Tarsus didn’t believe in Jesus, but he had a passionate, violent yearning for God's love. Restlessly, tirelessly he pursued it and found it exactly where he wasn’t looking, where he was convinced it wasn't, where he had sought to in (un)belief destroy it. "And he said, 'Who are you, Lord?' And he said, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.' " (Acts 9:5)

 

“I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Jesus meets and helps me when and where I barely or partly believe, not when and where I fully and completely believe. Because belief or faith is not a work that earns and deserves anything from God. It is that which knows in some small, child-like way that I can’t and don’t have to earn this; I can’t and don’t have to be deserving of this; I can’t and don’t have to go out and get this on my own; here it is and it is mine. Perhaps a child believes suddenly that they are all alone. Whatever the cause, that belief just as suddenly effortlessly rises up from the heart and races to call out, “Mom? Dad?”

  

Unbelief and belief wrestle with each other in my heart and my mind, and that's ok. Sometimes I can’t sleep and I wrestle with my thoughts, pinning one only to be lifted by another. It disturbs my wife’s sleep. And I wonder, would she sleep better with my wrestlings and turnings or with my complete absence?

The hardest and the strongest and the most courageous thing you can do

 

David Foster Wallace writes in his short story, All That, “This was the year, at five or six, that I learned the meaning of ‘reverence’, which, as I understand it, is the natural attitude to take toward magical, unverifiable phenomena, the same way that ‘respect’ and ‘obedience’ describe the attitude one takes toward observable physical phenomena, such as gravity or money.”

 

At the end of his life, Joshua says to the people of Israel, “be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left” (Joshua 24:6). This is in fact an echo of what was said to Joshua at the beginning of his life in leadership. 

 

Being chosen and commissioned after Moses to lead Israel into the conquest of the promised land, God says to him, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.” (1:6-7)

 

It is true that Joshua would need to be strong and courageous because of the more numerous and stronger enemies in the land; because of their well-built and fortified cities. It is true God would divide rivers and cause the sun to stand still; he would deliver kings and armies into Joshua’s hands. But above all these phenomena and more, the act requiring the greatest strength and courage would be Joshua’s obedience to God’s word: “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you.” This he must “be careful” to do, giving it his greatest attention to detail. 

 

In the face of adversaries, threats, and impassable and unassailable obstacles, obedience to God would be discouraged, called into question. Is it realistic? The observable, the tangible, the measurable, the visible, the audible would provoke great respect in Joshua and Israel. But God is to be more than respected; He is to be revered. He is the Holy One, the Deliverer, and the Savior.

 

Today, as Christians, we respect God, but often lose our reverence of Him. When God becomes associated with what is observable, we respect him so long as he is more observable than our trials or temptations. If we associate him with what is measurable, we respect him so long as we can measurably hold or feel more of Him, i.e. His blessings. But when and where God is only respected on the basis of what we see or feel, our obedience to him is tentative at best; it is conditional upon what is happening around us, that is, on what appears more real or more impressive, or on what feels to makes more sense than God and His Word.

 

But when and where God is revered, no matter what is happening around us or within us, we know that he still transcends all things, that he is still more Other than all things, that he is still over all things – that "from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." (Romans 11:36). This means that the hardest and the strongest and the most courageous thing we can do in this observable life is not to conquer what holds us back but to be careful to obey God and His Word. 

 

The surprising, challenging, often hard-to-accept and hard-to-explain observable earthly movements and developments in our lives are but a small reflection of the unobservable, eternal divine movements and developments in our lives. When all that is around us attempts to conquer or seduce our reverence – our obedience to, our worship of, our love for, our faith in the living, sovereign God – we don’t surrender. We are bold and courageous.