There’s two ways in which we take a posture towards God. And it becomes most clear when we are in a time of trouble. We either use God or serve God. Here’s what I mean:
Using God: When things go wrong, it’s so easy to get into thinking of poor me. My prayer might sound like, “God, all this obedience to you. Going to church, serving the poor, giving financially, reading my bible and what I get is this trouble?” That would be a way in which “religion” in the tradition sense might see it. We do good and get good. I obey God therefore I’m “in” and God owes me. Kind of like treating God as a vending machine – I put something in and expect to get something out.
Serving God: This is when I understand that I’m accepted through the infinite grace of Jesus Christ therefore I obey, and I owe him everything. I live expectantly – not necessarily expecting my intended outcome or even that “good” will happen to me in my timing, but that I know and believe that God is good, and I trust that he has my good in mind and use my circumstance to glorify himself. My prayer in this might sound like, “God, this is a really hard and scary time I’m going through right now. Thank you for the assurance that you will make all things right – not in my timing necessarily but in yours. I owe you everything for what you’ve done for me on the cross. I trust you. Please provide me the strength and endurance to navigate this situation.”
We can approach our faith like either Judas or Mary (Lazarus’ sister).
Judas found Jesus useful. He believed, at least at some point, that he was following a “king”. When Judas wasn’t going to get what he wanted, his preferred outcome, he switched teams and turned his back on Jesus. Judas had faith, but it was conditional based on what he would get from Jesus.
Mary’s faith was beautiful. Her washing of Jesus’ feet with the expensive perfume and wiping with her hair was an act that was totally useless, as stated by Jonathon Edwards in one of his notable sermons. A useless act because Mary was never going to get in return from Jesus anything resembling the value of the perfume and you could argue that using a much cheaper perfume would have done an adequate job of cleaning a man’s feet. And wiping his feet with her hair? How much better to use a towel or linen? It was an act of intimacy, demonstrating her love and willingness to do anything for the one that was going to do something incredibly selfless for her.
Mary was serving God and Judas was using him.
The hard truth is that as a follower of Jesus, we all have in us some Mary and some Judas. When challenges come in our lives, how easy it is to fall into the sense that we want God to remove the trouble and remove it now. We may even question our faith or begin to bargain with God. Trials are a sure way to test our faith and it seems the favorite means of God developing our character.
I am in no way diminishing your troubles. Troubles are hard and fear and anxiety can be very real. There is an old saying about troubles, “Don’t waste the pain”. If you’re in a difficult spot right now, don’t waste the pain. Use this as an opportunity to lean in on your faith, to draw closer to your Savior. Ask him to help you with your faith and to strengthen this in you.
He won’t let you down.
Inspired by a sermon by Timothy Keller
Richard Bahr 