How Can I Walk By Faith?
Many of us approach Jesus as if we’ve arrived at the airport. We’ve heard of this destination called heaven and we’ve signed up. And we come with a lot of suitcases. We might carry a bag called career and inside of it you’ve put where you want to be in 5 years, how much money you want to be making, what title you want to hold. And you open up another suitcase labeled relationships. Here, you’ve put inside your desires of what interests you want this girl or guy to have, what you want them to look like, what job you want them to have, what number on the enneagram you’d prefer, how tall you’d like them to be.” And then you open up another suitcase labeled family. Inside is where you’d like to live, what color you want your fence to be, how big you want your family to be. And maybe you’ve brought with you yet another bag, the fun bag. Inside is where you want to travel and where you want to stay and who you want to meet and this is where you want to eat. We show up for this journey and we’re carrying with us all sorts of desires, all sorts of plans, all sorts of ambitions that we think will make this journey more pleasurable and entertaining and comfortable for us. We show up and say, “Alright Jesus, my bags are all packed. I’m ready!”
But notice after Jesus gets rejected from his hometown, he sends out the Twelve to neighboring villages and towns. This is how he sent them out in Mark 8:16, He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.”’
Why does Jesus send them out in this way?
1. To learn how to trust their heavenly Father
There is a stark contrast between the crowd gathering at the synagogue at Nazareth who ultimately rejects Jesus’ words and now this Twelve who are called to trust Jesus on the mission he’s set them on. Our attention is drawn not to what they do take but what they do not take. It’s a very modest commissioning.
Jesus wants them to learn child-like dependence. As they approach the villages and towns, they are at the mercy of guests providing them a place to stay. They are at the mercy of others providing food for them to eat. Their itinerary has been put together but a lot of details are missing. But in Jesus’ commission is his voice saying, “You will have what you need as you go. When you seek to share my message and adopt my agenda, everything you need to do my will be given to you. Go and trust.” They’ve already seen him exorcise demons, calm the waves, heal the sick, raise the dead. Surely they can trust his Word here. After all, even though the details of the itinerary are missing from their perspective, God has already ordered their steps. They are not to carry much with them.
Some of us hang onto things - money being a big one - because we’re afraid if we give it away, we might be “up the creek without a paddle” as my grandmother used to say. Or we hang on to a relationship because we can’t imagine life with this person missing. You fear the loneliness that might come with a break-up. Some of you might feel God calling you out of a profession and into something new and your church leaders and Life Group leaders affirm that, but the number of questions scare you and you’re timid. I could list several scenarios, but the question deep in our heart is, “Will God be with me? Will God provide for me?” “This is a step of faith, will God come through?” The disciples left for villages knowing this answer was yes.
Every night, we sing our 2 (now 3) girls a parody of Barney, but it’s something we want them to understand deep within their hearts. We sing, “I love you. You love me. We’re a happy family. Husband, wife, and daughters--and God our Father--we’ll have all we’ll ever need.” Jesus sends the disciples out in this way so they can experience this truth.
2. To look beyond worldly things
Everything Jesus sends them off lacking is what every person cares a lot about: the bread, the water, the money. And Jesus’ teachings are always about “Eyes on me.” I can hear my mother in her classroom teaching, “1, 2, 3, eyes on me.” Jesus calls himself “The Bread of Life” and the “Living Water” and tells us not to be consumed or even pursue acquiring treasure on earth where rust and moth can destroy, but pursue acquiring treasure in heaven. He’s always pointing them away from the worldly: “Focus on me and my mission and my message. Don’t be concerned about the how, the how much, the when, the what. I want you to be concerned about the Who.”
Back to the bags we carry. When you go to the airport, you take your bags and they have to clear security. Well Jesus wants all of the luggage we think we need for the journey taken to the cross where he died to bring you eternal life, where he died to bring you forgiveness of sins, where he died to give you his righteousness, where he absorbed God’s wrath on our behalf, where he defeated sin, Satan, and death and accomplished redemption to those who receive him by faith--and if our luggage isn’t about those things--about God’s redemption story found in Christ, then they don’t clear the cross.
What we find is that many of the items we’ve placed in our different bags don't clear the cross. Jesus knows these items will end up being hindrances, setbacks, and stumbling blocks. What Jesus says to us in response is, “You’re traveling way too heavy for the journey. If you want to follow me, you got to let that go.” Believers plan lightly--they’re open to a change of path or pursuit at a moment’s notice if their Savior wills it; they accumulate lightly--they aren’t about a lavish lifestyle here. Jesus tells us, “Take only what you need to see this mission through.”
At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he tells the disciples they would become fishers of men. But so far in Mark, they have only been spectators, mere extras on a set. Now they are participants. If we want to follow Jesus and play a role in seeing God’s plan of redemption unfold, we too must walk in faith as the disciples did: a heart full of faith and fixed on heaven, trusting and believing God will provide everything we need and looking beyond the things of this world.