Losing Control
Love Never Dies, prt. 17
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
August 8, 2010
What do the following things have in
common?
a. Giving the remote to your spouse
b. Giving someone else the last word in
an argument
c. Deciding not to worry
f. Getting married
g.Going on a roller coaster
h.Watching someone you love go
through a serious illness
i. Dying
j. Sitting in the passenger seat
k. Coming to know God
What do all of those things have in
common? The answer is that they all
involve a loss of control. Obviously
giving the remote control to your spouse
involves a loss of control.
Giving someone else the last word in an
argument – that’s scary because to do
that is to decide that you’re not going to
control how it ends.
Deciding not to worry is deciding to
release your need to control the outcome
of a situation.
Getting married is about a decision to
allow someone else to have control over
your future.
When you go on a roller coaster, it takes
you wherever it’s going to go and you
have no say in the matter, except whether
or not to get on it to begin with.
When you love someone who is going
through serious illness, you often feel out
of control – you just want to do
something, but you can’t do what you
most want to do which is cure the illness
and make it go away.
Dying, obviously, is the ultimate loss of
control. It’s something that happens to
us, and almost never something that we
choose to bring upon ourselves. Usually
when people DO bring it upon themselves
it’s because they are feeling so out of
control that dying seems like the last way
available to them of keeping some kind of
control over their future.
When you sit in the passenger seat of a
car, you are not in control. Raise your
hand right now if you are a habitual backseat
(or side-seat) driver. Many people
are. It’s hard to not be in control, to let
someone else make the decisions,
especially if you sincerely feel you
usually make better decisions!
Like a lot of other aspects of life, coming
to know God, when it is authentic, when it
is really happening, is a loss of control.
It’s an intentional giving up of control.
Coming to know God is a little bit like the
roller coaster, in fact, because the only
real control you have in the matter is
whether or not to get on the ride. Once
you get on, what’s going to happen
simply is not up to you. You don’t hear
that very often. We’re told in the
church, “Say the sinner’s prayer. Read
your Bible. Go to church. Join a small
group. Grow in grace.” Grow in grace?
That’s a mouthful of mystery right there,
and we need to understand that! Grace is
God working in your life, and it’s clear
that God will work in our lives in ways
that defy our description and sometimes
even our desire!
In John 16, Jesus promises his disciples
that after he is gone, the Holy Spirit is
going to come, and he tells them that it is
through this Holy Spirit that they will
come to understand God more and more.
And we see in one of Christ’s statements
here that this Holy Spirit thing is out of
our control.
John 16:1-10 (MSG)
1 "I've told you these things to prepare you for rough times
ahead.
2 They are going to throw you out of the meeting places.
There will even come a time when anyone who kills you
will think he's doing God a favor.
3 They will do these things because they never really
understood the Father.
4 I've told you these things so that when the time comes
and they start in on you, you'll be well-warned and ready
for them. "I didn't tell you this earlier because I was with
you every day.
5But now I am on my way to the One who sent me. Not
one of you has asked, 'Where are you going?'
6 Instead, the longer I've talked, the sadder you've become.
7 So let me say it again, this truth: It's better for you that I
leave. If I don't leave, the Friend won't come. But if I go,
I'll send him to you.
8 "When he comes, he'll expose the error of the godless
world's view of sin, righteousness, and judgment:
9He'll show them that their refusal to believe in me is
their basic sin;
10 that righteousness comes from above, where I am with
the Father, out of their sight and control;
Righteousness comes from above, where
I am with the Father, out of their sight and
control.
See, when we can’t see someone, we
can’t control them. We can’t predict what
they will do, and we may not even know
or understand what they are doing. Right
now I can see you. I know where you are
and what you are doing. But in a little
while we’ll dismiss and you’ll walk out of
here and get in your car. I won’t be able
to see you anymore and at that point, you
will be beyond my sight, beyond my
ability to predict – even well beyond my
comprehension and understanding. This
is what Jesus tells his disciples about the
Holy Spirit. If you read the chapter, you
will see that Jesus really is saying, “It’s
good for you that I’m leaving. When you
can no longer see me, my Spirit will come
and if you think I did some tripped out
stuff when I was with you, wait til you get
a load of the Spirit. It’s gonna blow your
mind!”
Christianity has typically not submitted
very well to having its mind blown.
Scripture gives us trippy stuff like this:
John 3:8 (NIV)
8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its
sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where
it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
…and like this:
Acts 2:1-4 (NIV)
1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together
in one place.
2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind
came from heaven and filled the whole house where they
were sitting.
3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that
separated and came to rest on each of them.
4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began
to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now that is OUT THERE! It’s not even an
issue of whether it’s in anyone’s comfort
zone. It’s outside the realm of
conceivability. What about this?
Ephesians 3:17-20 (MSG)
17 that Christ will live in you as you open the door and
invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted
firmly on love,
18 you'll be able to take in with all Christians the
extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and
experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths!
Rise to the heights!
19 Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20God can do anything, you know—far more than you
could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest
dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by
working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
How about this?
1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)
9 "…No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has
conceived what God has prepared for those who love
him"--
Or this:
Matthew 14:25 (NIV)
25During the fourth watch of the night Jesus
went out to them, walking on the lake.
This is the God who calls to us. And
historically, these are some of our finest
efforts to put him into words – sing with
me:
SONG – CREED
Now there’s a place for things like
creeds. It clarifies things for us. It nails
things down. But the Holy Spirit cannot
be nailed down! So as good as things
like creeds can be, we lose a lot of God
when we think of him in those ways. Yet
we need SOMETHING to pin our thoughts
on, or else we’d end up sounding like we
live in a Harry Potter book, always
referring to “Him of whom nothing can be
spoken,” and talking about “the name
that cannot be named.”
Can you see the vivid contrast between
what scripture gives us about God and
the Holy Spirit, and what we end up with
when we boil it down? When we boil God
down, we tame him (of course calling
God “Him” is actually taming “him” too!).
We make it into statements we can agree
or disagree with, and then we think we
can have confidence that as long as we
agree with the correct things and
disagree with the incorrect things, we’re
good to go. But that’s not what the
spiritual life is about. In fact agreeing
with right statements and disagreeing
with wrong statements isn’t faith at all!
It’s just belief. That’s why the creed gets
it right when it keeps saying, “I believe, I
believe.” The Creed is simply giving us a
belief system. But the Creed isn’t giving
us faith. The Creed isn’t asking anything
of us. We can believe the Creed and still
be lost in our own egos. We can accept
the truth of the Creed and never give a
lick about the poor or anyone else. We
can sing the Creed with gusto and never
be changed. Creeds simply cannot
change us. Beliefs themselves cannot
change us. Now beliefs, accompanied by
faith, can bring change. Belief is what
makes faith possible. If I don’t believe
God exists, I will not think it’s possible to
know him, therefore faith in God will not
be possible. Belief makes faith possible,
but belief IS NOT FAITH. You can believe
and be completely faithless, as in fact I
believe many Christians actually are.
What was Jesus constantly saying to the
disciples – those devout religious Jewish
disciples? “Oh ye of little faith.”
Or “Where is your faith.” Or “Have you
no faith?” They were believers, but they
had very little faith.
The modern church has largely lost its
understanding of the difference between
faith and belief. Consequently, all we are
asked to do is to believe the right things.
But my friends, a person who has faith
but some wrong beliefs is better off than
a person who believes all the right things
but has no faith. Why?
Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)
6 …without faith it is impossible to please God…
Belief’s problem is that belief allows us
to maintain decorum and composure.
Belief lets us argue and debate, lets one
be right and makes another wrong.
Belief, in this respect, massages the ego.
Belief does not require a letting go, a loss
of control. But experiencing the Holy
Spirit, living and remaining in God, DOES
require a loss of control. We can dig in
our heels, believe more and more deeply,
and simply become more and more
stubborn and more convinced of our own
rightness and the other person’s
wrongness.
For a couple thousand years the church
has advocated belief, and left faith
behind. But righteousness comes not
from perfectly correct beliefs, from
knowing all the right things, but from
above, where Christ is with the Father,
out of our sight, and beyond our control.
Should I stop there? I mean, that’s
enough, isn’t it? How would your
spiritual life change today if you walked
out of here realizing that the Holy Spirit –
that God – is out of your sight and
beyond your control? What if we really
took to heart that the things God will do
truly are beyond all that we could ask, or
request, or even imagine? We have a
God like this, promises like this, these
words from Christ, and some find it hard
to accept that this incredible God might
have his arms around Gandhi right now,
or other people who are not like us? We
have a God like this, and we argue over
how and when people should be
baptized, and whether God loves certain
kinds of people? Seriously?
We gotta give up control. We gotta stop
confusing faith with belief. We gotta
realize that we can believe and be
faithless, but we cannot have faith and be
belief-less. But when belief comes from
faith, it is belief in what we know and
have experienced through faith, not
simply signing up for and buying
mentally into this or that statement. Have
you thought to yourself the past few
weeks, “Dang, this guy is turning my
whole understanding of faith on its ear”?
If you’ve thought that, you’re getting it.
I’m trying to convey it with the mystery
that is appropriate to it. If I don’t do that,
I’m simply not giving you God.
We gotta give up control. The Holy Spirit
is like wind. It’s like wind that is wild, and
it was with that understanding that I
named this church WILDWIND. We’re not
doing anything new here the last few
months – we’re just finding out how WILD
the Wild in Wildwind gets. And if it’s
really in sync and in tune with the Holy
Spirit of God, who is beyond our sight,
beyond our control, who visits us with
tongues of fire, who practically blows the
doors open at times – and who at other
times whispers so quietly we can barely
hear at all – then we’re onto something
real about who God is – something far
more real than I believe in God the Father
and in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit
and he was born of a virgin and the
communion of saints, blah, blah, blah.
Not that that stuff doesn’t matter, but it’s
not faith! Faith is not in those words –
faith is in that thing that takes you out
beyond what you ever thought you might
consider – beyond what you ever
imagined you might experience. Faith
does not constrict God in your mind but
frees him up. Faith does not shrink God
and his love down, but sees it as infinitely
vast. Faith does not busy itself with
getting all the facts straight. Faith
doesn’t worry about control, but gives up
control and realizes that every attempt we
make to keep control chokes out faith.
Faith surrenders to the wild wind of the
Spirit.
Let me ask you something. Is the vitality
of your relationship with your spouse or
with your kids dependent on all the facts
you know about them? Of course not!
Now certainly if you love someone you
will know some facts about them, but the
facts are never the point. NEVER! The
facts don’t determine the relationship.
Whether your spouse was born in
Kalamazoo to a poor mom or rumored to
have been dropped off by aliens at
Roswell is immaterial to them being your
spouse and you loving them. In fact, we
get married precisely so that we will be
loved BEYOND facts! People who do not
know and love me judge me by facts – by
my performance. Do I preach good
sermons? Am I growing my church? Am
I helping my clients and students? Those
are matters of fact. But people who love
me, love me for ME – because of what I
MEAN to them – me – who I am – the
person who interacts with others in
mysterious relationship that can’t really
be measured or explained or put in a
bottle. I’ve said it before – to us, Michael
Jackson was the King of Pop. But to his
children, he was just – daddy. To us, he
was his accomplishments, but to his
children he was his being as he conveyed
his life and his love to them in things big
and small – mostly in things too small for
us to measure or be able to say, “Look,
there it is” or “That’s what it was.”
Relationship is always mysterious.
Reminds me of something:
Luke 17:20-21 (NCV)
20 Some of the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will
the kingdom of God come?“ Jesus answered, “God’s
kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you will be able
to see with your eyes.
21 People will not say, ’Look, here it is!’ or, ’There
it is!’ because God’s kingdom is within you.“
The vitality of our relationship with God
is simply not dependent on facts and
information and control. In fact, coming
to know God means losing control. It
means stepping away from our
judgments. Most people I know, when
you say something to them, they will
almost immediately say to you, “I agree
or disagree with that.” They’re just
waiting to judge what I say and render a
verdict on it. I struggle when I talk to
people like that. I sometimes am at a
total loss for words with them because
they’re not really listening to me – they’re
just rushing to form their own opinions
and check off the box that says they
listened to me, like it’s a transaction. You
speak. I agree or disagree. I speak. You
agree or disagree. Perhaps we try to
convince one another, but we’re
fundamentally in opposition to each
other. I don’t like that. You know who I
love talking to? People that when I say
something, nod and go, “Hmmm…never
thought about that before. Tell me what’s
behind that. Tell me what it feels like to
carry that around with you. Help me see
what you are saying.” People like that
don’t just see me as someone to agree
and disagree with, but as someone to
understand, to know, to live in
mysterious relationship to. That’s spirit.
To experience spirit, we must be willing
to lose control – to not have to have the
answers; to not claim to know what God
is up to; to not think that belief in God
puts us in relationship with him; to not
assume that God must not be able to
reach this person or that group, or people
of this or that party or persuasion. But
don’t take my word for it. Read through
scripture yourself and see if you can find
any evidence at all that we can draw any
boxes, any borders, of any kind at all,
around God. Don’t just sit there and
think this is liberal gobbledy-gook. This
is gospel, embedded right into our very
name, WILDWIND! This isn’t about me
being squishy and theologically liberal,
it’s about a decision I made long ago to
try never to teach Christianity as a
religion (a mere belief system) and to try
always to teach it as spirituality – a way
of knowing God and living life with him.
And frankly, after eight years, I think I’m
just hitting my stride. I hope you’re able
to hear me.
This doesn’t mean we throw out belief.
Just because belief doesn’t necessarily
lead to faith doesn’t mean belief doesn’t
play an important role. But I think that
any belief, in order to be considered even
remotely right, must carry right inside it
the idea that, “This is what I strongly
believe – but I fully expect one day that
God is going to blow me away with the
truth.” If we believe with that attitude, we
can believe strongly, and passionately,
and belief will not be able to make us
rigid, or cause us to lock God in a box, or
try to determine what he can do, or who
he can work in. Belief like that allows our
faith to lead the way, as it must. Paul
made clear that this is the proper way to
believe:
1 Corinthians 13:12 (NIV)
12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part;
then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
The issue is whether you can believe
firmly and passionately, whether your
passionate belief can serve as a
container for authentic faith, without
coming to think that it’s the belief that is
important and not the faith.
Sidepoint before I close: I realize that in
this text Jesus says, “Refusal to believe
in me is their basic sin.” But when Christ
spoke of belief, he always meant belief
not in a creedy/statementy/professiony
kind of way, but in an experiential faithy
kind of way.
To experience God, to experience life
with his Spirit, we must be ready to give
up control, to let go of the things that
keep us comfortable and familiar. Doing
this requires not just belief but true faith.
As Jesus walked on the water, Peter
could believe it was him. He could
believe Jesus could allow him to do it.
But faith couldn’t kick in until he let go of
the boat – gave up his hold on what was
keeping him safe and comfortable – and
started walking. Belief makes faith
possible, but faith itself will sometimes
test and challenge our beliefs. Faith will
sometimes require us to let go of those
things that have made us comfortable –
the things we have come to trust in – so
that our faith is not in our beliefs, but
rather in God.
If it hasn’t already happened to you, that
will be a natural part of your faith journey.
When it starts happening, remember that
this is what pushes you beyond belief
and into true faith – that’s where Jesus is.
There is nothing to fear.
