Jesus and I Can't Both Be In Control

Let me state a truth: A lot of people are saved but they don’t know Jesus.

It’s the only way I can understand why people who believe and teach the doctrine of the sovereignty of God are so bent on controlling everything but Him…and sometimes even Him. It explains why people talk about freedom yet live in a prison of guilt and fear. It helps me deal with those who talk about grace and give very little of it. It is the only way I know to understand why I, a member of Grace Church, live a life that is sometimes marked by obsession with rules, being perfect and doing everything right. It explains why so many people have to be right and work so hard to appear good.

I don’t for a moment believe that I’m not saved and, frankly, I don’t really believe that those who drive me nuts with criticism and condemnation of other Christians aren’t saved. I just believe that those of us who are saved sometimes don’t know Jesus.

For many years, I followed Christ in a not dissimilar way to the way I followed the multiplication tables. I knew that it was true. It didn’t move me deeply, it didn’t make me feel good all over and it didn’t feel warm and fuzzy. During that period in my life, I simply didn’t understand those who had an emotional connection with Christ. I, from my superficial position of intellectual commitment, felt that they “needed” all that but all I needed was the truth.

“Just the facts, man, just the facts.”

After all, once you see truth, you can’t unsee it. Only a fool, once seeing it, refuses to live according to the truth one has seen.

As I look back, the problem was that I tried to make the Christian faith into an affirmation of propositions. It was intellectual assent, and I thought that was enough. It wasn’t…not nearly enough.

In the last century a New England man in Amherst, Massachusetts proposed to his wife this way: “I hope I have no foolishness called romance; I am too well-balanced for that sort of nonsense. But we might look forward to leading respectable and useful lives and enjoy the respect of the neighbors.”

If you think that was a good marriage proposal, there’s something weird about you, and everybody knows it. But if you believe something like that about your relationship to Christ and even teach it, making the Christian faith into a “respectable and useful” religious commitment, everybody will think you’re godly. Your not. You’re spiritually neurotic.

I’m not preaching at you – I’ve been there, done that, and God help me, still live there sometimes. It’s having it in your intellect but having trouble connecting it with your spirit. I don’t think I have all the answers. I do have at least one of them though.

With me, I think, the real problem was (and sometimes still is) control. In my need to control my situation and all the circumstances of my life, I was saved, but I didn’t know Jesus.

You see, you can analyze, teach and line up doctrines and propositions. There is something logical and proper about biblical theology. It will not only win arguments; it makes one feel secure in one’s rightness. On the other hand, trusting our mind, listening to your mind and acting on your mind’s reasons can get you into all sorts of trouble. Once you start going down that road to knowledge, you can’t control what happens. Not only that, there is something well…uh…you know…kind of crude about all that emotional stuff.

Am I saying that biblical doctrine isn’t of any consequence?

Are you crazy? Of course not!

I am, however, saying that all of those things have one purpose: To point you to Christ so that He will love you and empower you to serve and to enjoy Him.

Let me share that possibly strange passage of Luke 9:57-62 with you:
“As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, ‘I will follow you where you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’ To another He said, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Yet another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those of my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Jesus isn’t teaching that there is something wrong with caring about having a place to lay your head, about burying your relatives or about taking care of your loved ones.

Jesus is talking about CONTROL.

Of course, one isn’t going to let go of the control of anything until one can trust the One to whom one is giving control. And that’s why I’m always saying things like:
God isn’t angry at you.
He really loves you in spite of everything.
He isn’t a child abuser.
Go to Him and He won’t reject you.
He’s not surprised at anything you do.

How do I know all that? Well, of course, I know that because the Bible tells me so. But I don’t really know it until I test it, and I have over and over again. Go ahead and you test it.

Get in control of something bad. For instance, “Go sin so that you have something to repent of and, when you sin, sin boldly!” (And no, I’m not advocating sin…because you are going to anyway. Besides, that was a direct quote from Martin Luther. So, it you’re going to get mad at someone, get mad at him. After all, he’s dead and it doesn’t matter.) Then see if Jesus forgives you.

Now get in control of something good. Try to follow all of the ten you-know-whats in your own strength for just one day. Jesus will have to forgive you of that too – and He will!

The Bible calls that tree in the Garden that Satan liked so much the “Tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. From my experience, I think a better name might be the “Tree of the CONTROL of good and evil.” Because that’s where our troubles really start – where we think we can control our good and evil actions.

YOU SEE, YOU AND JESUS CAN’T BOTH BE IN CONTROL!

When I’ve been in control, He still loved me and I was saved, but it felt like He was avoiding me. When I clung to my doctrines, and my need to be right, good and in control, Jesus allowed me to do that.

However, when I decided that I didn’t have to be in control anymore and, as it were, “let the dead bury their dead,” I found that Jesus (who lives in me all the time – Galatians 2:20) started speaking to my soul deeply and profoundly.

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