The Seven Keys to Spiritual Buoyancy: Total Dependence (Key Two)
Introduction
Last week we began our journey into discovering the secrets of the apostle Paul's resilient spiritual life. We are calling them keys to spiritual buoyancy. Buoyancy is "the ability or tendency to float in water or air or some other fluid." It can also mean "an optimistic and cheerful disposition." We took the Biblical metaphor of life being like an ocean of chaos and unformed potential that can drown us and looked at Paul's trials and asked how he could stay afloat despite all that he faced. In 2 Corinthians there are seven principles that we can discover. The first was "The Ministry of Consolation." Psychological researchers have found that there is power in reframing parts of our story that can be therapeutic and help us move forward in our lives. When we look at our pain through the lens that asks who we can help because of what we have been through, it puts purpose in our pain. Our pain is no longer meaningless. Jesus was tempted and went to the cross so that He could help us overcome any temptation.
Today, we move on to the second principle. It is found in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NIV):
"We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead."
Here Paul again reframes his difficulties, but in a little different way. He says that rather than drowning him, his difficulties caused him to come to a place of total dependence upon God. He learned total dependence.
One of the things that causes people to drown is panic. As it is in the natural world, so it is in the spiritual. When we are reactive, we thrash and fight and lose against forces that are overwhelming to us, but when we relax in Him we float. Remember the poem about "The Cork and the Whale"?
A little brown cork
Fell in the path of a whale
Who lashed it down
With his angry tail.
But, in spite of the blows,
It quickly arose,
And floated serenely
Before his nose.
Said the cork to the whale,
“You may flap and sputter and frown,
But you never, never can keep me down:
For I’m made of the stuff
That is buoyant enough
To float instead of to drown.”
The key to spiritual success is not in striving, but in yielding. Let's talk about developing the spiritual discipline of total dependence.
1. Leaning On The Everlasting Arms
In the church I grew up in we sang a classic hymn written by Anthony J. Showalter and Elisha A. Hoffman. The lyrics are:
1 What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
leaning on the everlasting arms;
what a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
Refrain:Leaning, leaning,
safe and secure from all alarms;
leaning, leaning,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
2 O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
leaning on the everlasting arms;
O how bright the path grows from day to day,
leaning on the everlasting arms. [Refrain]
3 What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
leaning on the everlasting arms. [Refrain]
The United Methodist Hymnal, 1989
The inspiration for the song's refrain is Deuteronomy 33:27, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." To lean is "to incline, deviate, or bend from a vertical position", "to cast one's weight to one side for support", and "to rely on for support or inspiration." This hymn illustrates the principle of total dependence well. Paul had learned that if he would lean on the Lord in times of distress or difficulty, he would float and not drown. When learning to swim one of the first lessons is learning to float, and floating takes very little effort. You just relax and let the law of buoyancy do the work. The water is transformed from an enemy to a friend that causes you to float.
The truth is that we can do everything better when we are calm. Reactivity will drown us every time, but when we learn to respond to life's circumstances by appealing to higher laws, we can learn to float and not drown.
It is easier to lean upon someone when we know they love us. The writer of Song of Solomon asks this question, "Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved?" The wilderness in Scripture is like the sea, a place of chaos and unformed potential, a place where jackals and dragons and scorpions live. But, in this poem, the young lover comes traipsing from the wilderness leaning on the one she loves. The wilderness couldn't destroy her because she was with someone who couldn't be destroyed by its desolation.
In his letters, the apostle Paul never denies the power of the Christians's enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. He believes that there is real malevolence in the world and there overwhelming forces of nature that cannot be controlled, but he learns that these are not all there is.
As a Pharisee who knows a lot about laws and legal frameworks, he learns to lean on a higher law.
In Romans 7 he talks about the way that he has wrestled to do the right thing and found himself sinking and drowning. In the tongue-twisting words of Romans 7:19-25 (KJV), he writes:
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
He exposes the futility of dependence upon oneself completely. He goes on in Romans 8:1-4 (KJV) to appeal to a higher law. He says,
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The gravity of sin causes us to naturally sink, but the higher law of thermodynamics and the lift of the Spirit can cause those who spread their spiritual wings and capture those thermal winds to float up, to glide, to fly, to soar!
And it is done by leaning in love upon Him! Paul ends that chapter by asking who can separate us from the love of God. He says, "I am persuaded!" We learn by experience the power of total dependence. His conclusion is no one and nothing! And we float!
2. Laziness Is Not An Option
"We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead."
What total dependence is not is laziness. God created us for challenge and work just as much as victory and rest. Paul spent much of his time working hard to accomplish the goals that the Lord had given him. Total dependence is not a mentality that causes us to sit on the spiritual couch and languish, but the attitude that says I will lean upon the Lord and utilize every resource he provides to go as far as I can for Him and flourish!
Listen to what Paul says about the grace of God in
1 Corinthians 15:9-10 (NIV)
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
My father-in-law used to say, "Pray to God, but row for shore." In our text, Paul says that as he worked and faced the challenges of life in the province of Asia he came to moments where the pressure was more than he or his companions could endure. They honestly thought they were going to die. His pain became so real that he thought it was over.
By the world's standards, he said we were all but completely done for.
This is something that happens a lot in Scripture and in life. Remember the story of Sarah and Abraham facing infertility after God's promise of a child, or the children of Israel at the dead end of the Red Sea after the LORD had brought them out of Egypt, or Lazarus being dead for four days when Jesus showed up to fix the situation. There are moments when life knocks the props out from under us and we fall into the ocean of difficulty that can easily turn into a malevolent anger ocean of despondency and despair. We can get bitter if we are depending on ourselves or have the idea that God has somehow failed us because we are going through something, or we can get better if we learn to calmly relax and lean upon Him!
Charles Spurgeon said it this way, “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”
Paul reframes his difficulties again and declares that the reason he and his companions in the province of Asia have gone through what they have is so that they would learn total dependence upon the Lord.
The reason that we can depend upon Him is because He is unlimited in His resources, creativity, and ability.
Paul's final word in the text is "God, Who raises the dead."
Paul learned through living that God's limits are not our limits.
3. Learning to Lean
The writer of Proverbs invites us to trust in the LORD with all of our hearts and not lean on our own understanding. The truth is that you will never have everything figured out and there will always be a dimension of mystery to life, and this is where faith is essential. If you have to have all of the answers to move forward in your Christian walk, you are going to live frustrated and combative. But, if you can learn total dependence, you're going to float. The writer of Proverbs says that if you will trust in the LORD, lean upon Him, then He will direct your paths.
God's limits are not our limits, and when He lives in us our limits are expanded beyond what we can imagine. He raises the dead. I will float and not drown!
In Paul's apostolic credentials (2 Cor 11:24-28) that we read last week, he mentions being shipwrecked and adrift upon the sea for a day and a night. Acts 28, tells the story of the shipwreck when Paul floated and did not sink. When everyone else, the experts, were in despair, Paul calmly prayed for his meal, had a personal communion service, and invited everyone else to eat. The reason was that Paul had heard from God in the middle of the storm and because he had heard from God he was serene. His serenity caused him to see everyone else on the ship saved as well. When you lean upon the Lord others around you will be affected and changed as well. 1 Peter 3 mentions the way that husbands can be won over to the Lord by their wives, without a single word... We can do everything better when we are calm, and we can be calm in every situation, because of Who we are leaning upon!
The hope of the Christian is the resurrection! There is a resurrection day coming when we will be completely transformed, but it has already begun. It began when our Lord was raised from the dead. And we are partakers of it through believing/repenting, being buried together with Him in baptism in His Name, and when we receive the Baptism of the Spirit and He does something we cannot do, He does a spiritual heart transplant. The life we now live is not our own, but His! He raises the dead!
His limits are not our limits and when He is living on the inside, our limits expand beyond imagination!
Philippians 4:13 is one of the most popular verses of Scripture. It speaks of transcending the challenges of life. But, sometimes we miss a part of it when we quote it. Let's read a few verses before:
11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Paul says he has learned. Learning to float takes time, difficulty, and challenge. It did not happen overnight for Paul and it will not happen that way for us either. We grow along the way.
I want to encourage you to reframe the difficulties of life as opportunities to lean upon the LORD more heavily. As you do your part and come to the end of yourself, lean on Him!
Application
What is it that you are currently facing that is beyond you? Is it a health crisis, aging parents, or difficulties with your teenagers? Are there bills you can't pay and you have done all you know to do?
This altar call is for you. I want you to relax in the LORD and tell Him that you believe He can do things we cannot. Tell Him you've come to the end of yourself. Lean upon Him today.
Conclusion and exhortation
God did not make you to sink, but to float:
A little brown cork
Fell in the path of a whale
Who lashed it down
With his angry tail.
But, in spite of the blows,
It quickly arose,
And floated serenely
Before his nose.
Said the cork to the whale,
“You may flap and sputter and frown,
But you never, never can keep me down:
For I’m made of the stuff
That is buoyant enough
To float instead of to drown.”
