Covenant Presbyterian Church

I am increasingly turned off by the "fix it" mentality that permeates the church. A trip to the local Christian bookstore or a quick internet search will reveal cures for just about anything that ails you: financial problems, sexual dysfunction, domestic clutter, job dissatisfaction, parenting faux pas, loneliness, flab. Possibly more pressing even than sin itself is the foolishness of believing that we should not suffer from the problems associated with it, that if we do something is wrong, or that a ready cure is just a click away, a five-minute devotion from dissipating, or an encounter with God that will wipe the slate clean and establish problem-free living.

Looking back at my life I can remember many things that God did not "fix." He did not fix my dad - he died. No prayer of faith, magic formulas, or positive thinking preserved his life. We drove older cars most of the time, lived in a small house with one bathroom, and considered the vacation of a lifetime a trip to Callaway Gardens. Christian education did not remove the issue of peer pressure. The Lord has not been pleased to remove the daily battle against sin; I am regularly struck by the fact that many of the sinful propensities with which I struggle as an adult were present in seed-form as a child and teenager. I have not found the perfect parenting principle, the cure-all for occasional seasons of spiritual listlessness, or the one key that will make me healthy, wealth, and wise. Perhaps I do not have sufficient faith, need to visit Benny Hen, or send in my seed money to Robert Tilton (assuming he is out of jail.) I struggle. My guess is that you do too. You are not alone.

If you are a student of Scripture, you have undoubtedly observed that every beloved character would be judged as an abysmal failure by the current canons of successful living. Some, like Job, had wealth, to be sure, but it was taken away, replaced with wretched poverty, and restored only after a season of incredible affliction. Some, like David, obtained great victories over impressive enemies, but the Lord sent hard trials their way, trials so gut-wrenching that it made killing Goliath seem like swatting a gnat. For all of Paul’s diligence and success in spreading the gospel, he was afflicted daily by that hard-to-define stake in his side, many enemies of Christ, and the daily failings of God’s people. And our Savior, why did his Father not fix his life? You might say, of course, that he had to live such a miserable existence in order to save us, and you would be right at one level. Yet, if you join his life to the Spirit’s teaching that his life will be duplicated in us, that we carry about with us daily his death so that his life might be manifested in us, his sufferings are then seen in a much different perspective - unique, certainly, redemptive, absolutely, but also paradigmatic for us - a life of cross-bearing to be carried each day in the lives of millions of his faithful disciples. So much for fixing problems. Given the gloriously trying and often difficult lives of Job, David, Paul, and Jesus, not to mention Mary, Daniel, and Peter, I prefer a less easy solution than the small paper-back promising to free me from every worry, debt, and extra inch: a sort of "Discipleship for Dummies." I prefer the life of faith.

Have you read Hebrews 11 recently? It is a sharp nail in the coffin of "God will always fix your problems and make your life easier if you just learn the key." Abel was murdered for his testimony. Abraham left everything he knew at the bare promise of God and never inherited a square inch of the promised land. Joseph may seem to have led a fairy-tale existence, but he was a stranger in a strange land and died with the unfulfilled desire of Israel’s return to Canaan. What can we say about Moses, with whom God spoke mouth-to-mouth? For one sin, he was prohibited from entering the land of promise. What about Isaiah? He was cut in half with a saw. The list of affliction is very long. But interestingly, Hebrews 11 is not about personal misery, affliction, or even testing. It is about the promise of God’s word and the overcoming power of faith - not the modern idea that "faith will remove all your problems" but rather "faith will enable you to put your problems in perspective, trust God regardless of your outward circumstances, and enable you to overcome."

The Lord would have us to learn this lesson; life is not about "fixing" but about "believing." We live in a fallen world. While Jesus is bringing the blessings of salvation "far as the curse is found," the curse is still to be found, in your life and mine. Without any external prompting, we find within ourselves a contagion that needs no dramatic stimulation to rise to the surface with disruptive, destructive power. And we cannot escape the call of discipleship. "Take up my cross," our Savior said. We carry about with us daily the dying of our Savior. We are baptized into his death. Through afflictions, we learn to die to self, cry to God for help, and depend upon his strength. It is in our weakness, not in our strength and comfort, that his power is revealed and perfected. We are running from this. We live in a society in which every problem has a solution: more money, more exercise, more counseling, more education. The church, which should be the pillar and ground of the truth, is caught in a vortex of her own pathetic attempt to flee the life of life in favor of the fleeting promise of "the remedy." We want to see, not believe. We want the Jesus movie, not the preaching Jesus. We want sight and sound, not the still small voice. We would trade in the cross for new Mercedes, a better body, a bigger house, tributes to our own success in the name of Jesus, of our ability to "fix it," to manipulate God into helping us avoid the very afflictions that conform us to the character of Christ and demonstrate the legitimacy of our discipleship.

We must learn to believe again. We must learn to lead lives of faith in the word of God. What this means in practice is that the most important thing in this world is the promise of God. Period. Nothing else is even close. Whether for salvation, grace to endure, wisdom to decide, or power to overcome, we are wholly dependent upon the promise of God. He would have us live by faith, not by sight. And sometimes living by faith means affliction. But, O, what joy comes through affliction! We learn on the other side that God’s word is true and that he is faithful. We, like our Savior, learn obedience by the things that we suffer - as parents, spouses, children, churchmen, domestic guardians, and breadwinners. Life is not all affliction, to be sure, but the life of the true disciple is the life of enduring hardship - of crying to God in prayer, of laboring to overcome sin, of entering into combat with the world, the flesh, and the devil, of sometimes having God withdraw from us the comfortable sense of his presence that we might learn that nothing is more precious than having him as our God and Father. These are things we learn only through adversity, suffering, and sacrifice. Without them, we grow soft. We pray, "Fix it now, God," rather than "Be glorified, Father." We expect simple solutions to complex problems. We grow unwilling to work hard, to the point of weariness, to please God. We do not have David’s spirit, "I will not offer unto the Lord that which costs me nothing."

What the church needs in the present hour is not a handbook to make discipleship easy, less costly, and more popular. What we require above all is more faith in the promise of God, the old confidence that God’s promise defines reality. The confidence of Joseph - I am not going to take advantage of the easy availability of sin. And again - bury my bones in Canaan, because we are going back regardless of what we see with our eyes because God has promised. The confidence of Abraham - God has promised me a city, and I am going to seek it by faith. The confidence of Job - though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. In each case, faith obtained the victory - not three points to cure my life, an undiscovered prayer principle, a mystical escape into higher spirituality - faith in the promise of God.

And if faith overcame the world in the case of the Old Testament saints, how much more must it be our banner today? The faith has come. All of God’s promises are "yes" and a-men" in Jesus Christ. He reigns on high, not to make our lives easier but to show us his power and faithfulness, to demonstrate that we may find like he did infinite resources of strength in passionate, believing prayer, confidence in God’s goodness and love, and renewed commitment to persevere in faith. Our faith is now anchored within the very veil of God’s presence. Our Savior intercedes, reigns, and preaches to us as our enthroned Deliver. He overcame and entered into his glory. We shall inherit the same.

Dear believer, do not think that a face change in Washington will bring a cure in four years for sins that have been festering for generations. Do not think that a few easy principles will overcome the devil. Do not think that years of bad financial, communication, and parenting habits can be changed in a weekend. God does bring change. He sanctifies. He does so, however, only when we believe his promises and give chief place to his word. Then, we shall find that he has fixed the problem - us. When we live by faith, we overcome. Not until.