Radically God-Dependent
TCF Sermon
January 13, 2008
What do you think of when you hear the word helpless? Do you think of a little baby? Babies are certainly helpless. They’re absolutely dependent on their parents for their very life. If parents don’t feed them, don’t take care of all their physical needs, that baby is helpless to do anything about it, and that baby will die. Of course, that’s true of most infants in most species, though it seems human infants are among the most helpless at the very beginning of their lives.
You might think of other things when you think about helpless. Needless to say, as a dad standing over my daughter’s hospital bed yesterday not knowing where all this is headed is a rather helpless feeling – and a rather timely illustration for this sermon.
Other thoughts that might bring to mind the word “helpless?” How about any team facing the Boston Celtics these days? How about Ohio State in the face of the onslaught from LSU? See, something for everyone in this sermon. Babies, sports….
Just as in the beginning of life we’re helpless, sometimes at the end of life we’re almost as helpless. Sometimes, we must rely on other people for our most basic needs. But somewhere in the middle of life, from toddlerhood to old age, where most of us are, we’re not so helpless.
Or. are we really more helpless than we think? We have this tendency to think we’re independent. We also have this tendency to want to be independent – to want to be in control. But an experience like our recent ice storm, or the past few days with Lisa’s illness, shows us that our supposed independence, what we thought was largely control of our lives, is a thin veneer, easily shattered with just one or two events.
Think about this for a moment. When we come into the world, we are helpless. Often, but not always, when we are ready to leave this world, we are helpless. Sometimes that helplessness comes with old age. Sometimes it comes with illness. Often, it comes with both.
In between the beginning of our life and the end, we develop a measure of independence, don’t we? But despite what we might think, we are never truly independent, and we’re always reliant to some degree on somebody. In that sense we’re helpless.
We could think of dozens of everyday examples, from the electric company, to farmers who get us the food we eat, to manufacturers who make our cars, and those who make the clothes we wear, and on and on. I don’t care how handy you are – even if you’re Paul Burgard or Steve Staub, or Jim Garrett, some of the handiest guys I know, you still have to rely on someone to make the tools for you to be so handy. You still had to have someone to teach you the things you’re handy at doing now. You still have to learn and you still need the raw materials.
Of course, even if we weren’t at all dependent to some degree on other people, which of course we really are, we’re always dependent on God.
Acts 17:25 He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things;
Acts 17:28 (NIV) ’For in him we live and move and have our being
We’re dependent on God for our very existence. Someone once said:
Man, despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication and many accomplishments, owes the fact of his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.
Of course, I would add that the Creator of that topsoil, and the very reason that it rains at all, is the One to whom we owe the fact of our existence. But how we handle that dependence is still a choice. We can seek independence from every one and every thing – which will always be a losing battle. Or we can yield, recognize our total helplessness, and be radically God-dependent.
Sometimes this dependency is forced upon us, and sometimes we choose to yield to it before we have no choice but to yield. But the reality is we’re all radically God-dependent, whether we’re willing to admit it or not. We sometimes have this dependency forced upon us because of our innate emotional need to control our circumstances and our environment.
To some extent, every one of us hates to lose control of any aspect of our lives. We all need other people. We just don’t want to need them. For some of us, this is a bigger issue than with others. But the world has control issues, and all God’s children have control issues. I believe our need to control is rooted in original sin – pride…
Adam and Eve wanted control – they didn’t like God’s rules. Actually, there was only one rule, and they couldn’t even obey that.
The opposite of pride is humility – and being helpless is quite humbling. Just visit a nursing home and ask those folks if it’s easy to have another person change your diaper.
A possible synonym for pride is a radical independence. The opposite of an attitude of helpless is seen very clearly in our culture:
- pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps
- take pride in your work or your accomplishments
- inability to receive from others
- the attitude: “I don’t need anybody’s help”
But the Word of God makes it clear that self sufficiency is a sin. It’s a sin that God is constantly working to root out of His children.
God taught Paul not to be self-sufficient by revealing to him how utterly dependent on God he really was.
2 Corinthians 1:8-10 (NIV) We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,
If we were to paraphrase the first verse and a half of this passage, Paul might have simply said:
“things were really tough, so tough that we felt absolutely helpless against the onslaught of these hardships.”
But why did this happen? Verse 9 tells us…this happened so that… “that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.”
Our tendency is to be independent. Our natural human tendency is to rely on our own strength, our own resources. But here, we see God allowing a specific set of hardships into the life of Paul and his companions, for the express purpose of teaching them reliance on God.
Rather than gloss over his feeling of despair and helplessness in this situation, Paul underscored it forcefully to illustrate how powerless both he and the Corinthians were apart from God, and to stress how important is prayer as a means of effecting God’s gracious intervention and aid.
Bible Knowledge Commentary
The Phillip’s paraphrase of verse 8 is helpful:
“At that time we were completely overwhelmed; the burden was more than we could bear; in fact we told ourselves that this was the end.”
Matthew Henry writes:
God often brings his people into great straits, that they may apprehend their own insufficiency to help themselves, and may be induced to place their trust and hope in his all-sufficiency. Our extremity is God’s opportunity. God’s raising the dead is a proof of his almighty power. He that can do this can do anything, can do all things, and is worthy to be trusted in at all times. Matthew Henry
Later in 2 Corinthians, Paul reiterates this theme of reliance on God in our weakness or helplessness, in these verses:
2 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV) 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV) 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 13:4 (NIV) 4 For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you.
Weakness. Helpless. Total dependency. Radically God-dependent. We see a similar theme addressed in Revelation chapter 3. There, Jesus is speaking to the Laodicean church and we usually read this as a very strong warning against lukewarmness in our faith, which it clearly is.
But what’s at the root of that lukewarmness? Self-sufficiency.
Verse 17: “You say I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.”
The Laodiceans were complacent and lukewarm in their faith because they were self-sufficient. An interesting historical note sheds more light on this. About 60 A.D., the city of Laodicea was destroyed by an earthquake. The Roman empire offered assistance in rebuilding the city, but the people of Laodicea declined, choosing to use only their own resources.
Most of us would say, that’s good! If they can rebuild on their own without government money, why shouldn’t they? Why should they get assistance when they don’t really need it? And then we can contrast that with the attitude we so often see in natural disasters in our world – immediate complaints about why the government didn’t do more, or do it sooner or better.
We can even find Biblical precedent for this idea in passages like:
2 Thessalonians 3:7-10 (NIV) 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9 We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."
This type of independence really speaks more of responsibility, than the kind of independence we’re looking at this morning. But, however admirable and even Biblical this type of independence may be in some material things, in the spiritual realm, self sufficiency can be spiritually deadly.
A church’s true sufficiency, not to mention each of us as individual believers, must come from God.
2 Corinthians 3:5 (NIV) 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
1 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV) 7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
Think for a minute about the traditional posture of prayer – very few of us really pray on our knees anymore. I usually walk while praying, or I’m seated, or lying on my bed in the middle of the night unable to sleep. I only occasionally pray on my knees. But is there a more helpless stance than on our knees?
At least symbolically, on our knees is the best visual image of the helpless posture of prayer.
Norwegian theologian Ole Hallesby settled on the single word helplessness as the best summary of the heart attitude that God accepts as prayer.
“Whether it takes the form of words or not, does not mean anything to God, only to ourselves,” he adds. “Only he who is helpless can truly pray.”
Why is that? Because if we’re not helpless, we’re finding some measure of sufficiency in and of ourselves, or in someone, or something, else.
Writer Philip Yancey notes in his book Prayer: Does it Make a Difference? that “This (idea of helplessness) is a stumbling block – we aspire to self-reliance from our childhood.”
As adults we like to pay our own way, live in our own houses, make our own decisions, rely on no outside help.
Why else would self help books be such a popular category?
As we’ve noted, the truth is that we’re not really self-reliant. We’ve already listed several things we do and use in our daily lives, and how many people it takes to provide those things to us. Interestingly, it seems even the secular world recognizes the importance of our realizing our helplessness in some situations. They recognize this is important because of the impact it can have on our emotional well-being.
The secular world has coined the term “control issues,” and it’s seen as a real emotional problem for those in whom this is a life-impacting character trait.
I found one self-assessment tool to determine how you’re doing with control issues in your life. Now, remember this is a secular viewpoint, but let’s see if we can make some spiritual applications with this today.
You don’t need to raise your hand, but as I ask the questions, think about how you’d have to honestly answer this sampling of questions.
The answers are a simple yes or no, describing what you feel or think.
1. If you control other people, they will do what you want them to do.
2. It’s a way to keep everything orderly, precise, and predictable, so that you don’t go crazy or insane.
3. You hate to be out of control or to lose your control.
4. If things don’t go your way, then you feel you’ll have to work harder or have to struggle to reorganize and correct them.
5. When you see something or someone who needs to be fixed, you often step in.
6. You have an image, dream, or ideal of the way things are supposed to be and you work at trying to get it to be that way.
7. You are afraid that if you don’t take care of things, things will never get done.
8. You feel if "you don’t do it, then no one will.’’
9. You are afraid that everything you have worked for will be lost, so you take control to ensure this doesn’t happen.
10. You find it difficult not to help when you are presented with a person or thing which appears helpless and out of control.
11. You tend to hold to an "it’s my way or the highway’’ approach with people who don’t do what you want them to do. You hope this will ensure they change their bad behaviors.
12. You want everybody in your immediate life to be happy and you’ll do whatever it takes to make it so.
Now, this is not all the questions, just a sampling. But to interpret this self-assessment, it says:
INTERPRETATION: If you checked 3 or more, you have a tendency to overcontrol the people, places, and things in your life.
Next, another tool is provided to help assess our emotional response. Again, I’ve abridged this significantly, and will use just a few questions that I think apply this morning.
Emotional Response: A Self-Assessment
DIRECTIONS: Here are some ways in which you could control your emotional response to life. Put an ``X’’ next to the statements which are usually true for you.
1. You can show enjoyment, excitement, and enthusiastic feelings when the event appropriately calls for such a response.
2. You are able to openly cry and grieve a loss event in your life.
3. You are able to admit feeling powerless over those things out of your control to change, fix, or rescue.
4. You are able to feel at ease and have serenity in letting go of the uncontrollables and unchangeables in your life.
5. You do not feel you are alone in having to deal with the pressures of life because you feel you have a Higher Power to whom you can hand the uncontrollables and unchangeables over which you feel powerless.
6. You feel detached from the behaviors, actions, and negative aspects of the people in life for whom you care a great deal and yet are not able to fix, rescue, or change.
Now, this is just six of the 20 questions they use, but you get the idea. The way to score this one is:
If you checked 17 or less, then you need to work on control of your emotional life so that you cease to use overcontrol of other people in your life to feel good about yourself. You need to handle your own feelings and not give others the power to affect the way you feel or express your feelings. Your feelings are something which you have the ability to control and change. They, along with your thinking and actions, are the only controllables and changeables you can influence, alter, or change.
Since all truth is God’s truth, and all wisdom is God’s wisdom, I think we can learn from this secular source about the need we all have, to some extent, to control all the variables in our lives.
First, it’s clear we cannot do it. We have a lot less control over most things than we think we do.
Secondly, it’s also clear that trying to control those things only frustrates us. Again, I’m not talking about things that are clearly responsibilities, like the example we gave earlier about our responsibility to work. I’m talking about the things that life’s circumstances bring us over which we have no power – that can include people and things and events.
Third, it’s plain that we must let go of these things over which we have no control.
Now, this is where the world’s answers are inadequate, even though to their credit this resource did reference the “Higher Power” as part of the answer to our control issues. But that obviously doesn’t go far enough.
You’ve heard the phrase, “Let Go and Let God?”
That’s where we have to end up in so many things in life. But it’s an active, intentional letting go. And this intentional letting go is accomplished by prayer – that active, but intentionally helpless posture we referred to, in which we acknowledge and admit to God, you’re God and I’m not.
We say to God, “You can do something about this thing over which I have no control, and I cannot do anything. I release this to you, and I trust you to work all things together for good. I trust you to accomplish your purposes in this circumstance, in my life, in someone else’s , in this event, in this illness, whatever the case may be.”
Now, let me be honest and rather personal with you this morning. This is a real issue with me. Both my wife and one of my best friends have called me “rigid.”
Now, don’t go shaking your heads yes when I say that. You’ll make me feel bad.
In my defense, I think part of that tendency to be rigid is how God designed me for the purposes in which He’s chosen to use me. I even had Chuck Farah prophesy over me once, more than 15 years ago, long before I was a leader in this church, saying that God will use me in the body to see that things are done decently and in order.
I think that was a valid prophetic word – look at my responsibilities here at TCF.
But isn’t it true that so often the gifts God chooses to use in us can, in some areas of our lives, hinder our spiritual growth or well-being if not properly, constantly and completely submitted to him? Thus, I cannot spiritualize all of this what other people have called rigidity, but I recognize as control issues, because I’m all too aware of it in other areas of my life.
Part of this tendency I have I might legitimately be able to chalk up to the person God made me to be in His Kingdom.
But in other areas of my life, to be rigid is a control issue for me. It goes deeper than that, too. When things don’t go according to our expectations, when things are disappointing to us, when things are especially challenging or difficult to us, we have the desire, or an overt need, to try to control.
But here’s what I believe the Lord wants. He wants our posture before Him to be helpless. He wants our posture before Him, in prayer, in our attitudes, to be Radically God-Dependent.
I live in a web of dependence, at the center of which is God in whom all things hold together. Most parents feel a pang when the child outgrows dependence, even while knowing the growth to be healthy and normal. With God, the rules change. I never outgrow dependence, and to the extent that I think I do, I delude myself. Asking for help lies at the root of prayer: the Lord’s Prayer itself consists of a string of such requests. Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God. Philip Yancey
By praying and submitting to God, we consciously recognize we cannot do it all by ourselves. We recognize we do need God, not just a little, but radically. We recognize our need to not only trust Him, but to depend on Him.
Jacques Ellul: We still find it hard to believe today that prayer is more important than action.
Think about that. How often have I said “Well, all I can do is pray,” as if that’s a last resort and I’ve really reached the end of the things I can do – as if it’s almost useless.
Sometimes when we say that, it’s as if we’re saying “if only I could do something, things might be better, but all I can do is pray.”
God’s convicting me more and more that “all I can do is pray” is a good place to be.
Don’t just do something, sit there. And while you’re sitting there, you might slip down onto your knees and do the most effective thing we can do when we have no control – which, as we’ve seen, is pretty much all the time.
It’s a better place to be than me trying to figure out how to control a situation which is already well beyond my control, and probably never was in my control to begin with.
Let’s be clear to distinguish between responsibility before God on the one hand, and the innate need we have to control on the other.
But with that understood, let’s be certain to acknowledge that being helpless is a good place to be when we serve the One who can do more than help – when we serve the One who is the Maker of the Universe, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Man who is in control.
Of course, we may be helpless, but that doesn’t mean we’re hopeless.
Let me close with a story I read in a book by Ben Patterson, called Deepening Your Conversation with God.
Ben Patterson is the campus chaplain at Westmont College, CA. He tells the story of when he pastored a church, and had ruptured a disc, and as a result, was confined to six weeks in bed. He was so heavily medicated he couldn’t read, and he spent the time pretty much flat on his back.
Out of a helpless boredom at first, he began to pray through the church directory and came to really enjoy that.
He writes: “One day near the end of my convalescence, I was praying and told the Lord, “you know it has been wonderful, these prolonged times we’ve spent together. It’s too bad I don’t have time to do this when I’m well.”
God’s answer came swift and blunt. “Ben, you have just as much time when you’re well as when you’re sick. It’s the same 24 hours in either case. The trouble with you is that when you’re well, you think you’re in charge. When you’re sick, you know you’re not.”
In how many parts of our lives do we think we’re in charge? This morning, I want to admit that we’re not. I’m not.
I want to know that every day and admit it. I want to admit it in a way that acknowledges that I don’t have what it takes to minister. I don’t have what it takes to be a good husband or father. I don’t have what it takes to be a good friend. I don’t have what it takes to do anything.
Jesus told his disciples: apart from me you can do nothing. Rather than see that as an awful place to be, that is, able to do nothing, let’s remember that Jesus also said in the verses immediately prior to this:
John 15:4-5 (NIV) 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
How do we remain in Him? How do we stay attached to the vine? With a heart attitude that’s on our knees and admits, without you I’m helpless and I can do nothing. But with you I can bear much fruit.
Pray – let’s repent of a heart attitude of self-sufficiency, surrender to our helplessness, cling to the hope that comes from being helpless but remaining in Him.
