I Believe, but I Don’t Know God Personally

Do you long to be faith filled but find it hard to? Do you wish for more follow through and less fall through? Maybe you think, “I believe in God, but forgiveness is impossible.” Maybe you believe in God but are scared to share your faith. Or “I believe, but do I really have to be part of a church?” Join us as we try to move forward in belief and practice.

Do you ever struggle with believing? How is your relationship with God? We can know God personally, but how? Mark 9:17-27 gives us clues to answering these questions. 

Transcript

Well, good morning. Am I on? I’m on. All right. Good to see you all this morning. My name is Kristen Odland. I’m part of the preaching team here at Community Covenant, and I get to kick off this new sermon series on belief.

So, um, kind of exciting. Um, today, so each week of the series, we’ll kind of focus in on a different aspect. The video kind of alluded to that, but today we’re going to talk about what does it mean to have a relationship with God? Um, and how is that different than just sort of knowing about who he is?

So, um, [clears throat] I want to share an example.

So, um, has anybody watched the movie Legally Blonde? It’s a good one. It’s a really good one. I can’t remember what year it came out, but I watched it last week with my kids and I realized I must have watched it a lot of times back when it came out because I could anticipate every scene that was coming, right? And you’re just like, I am on team Reese. Like I mean her name’s not Reese in the movie, but you just sort of feel like you know Reese Witherspoon, right? And you’re like on her side if you read a lot. Um I read I read a lot and she has a pretty like epic book club. So a lot of the books I read have the like Reese’s book club recommendation on them. So I sort of feel like I know Reese, but you know Reese has never asked me for a book recommendation. So I don’t know. Um but I think that’s that’s the thing, right? like we know about a lot of people like we sort of feel like we know them. Celebrities, politicians, athletes, we watch them in interviews, like we read all the things about their lives, but like they don’t actually know us. So, it’s not really a relationship because we just know things about them, but it’s not reciprocated. So, I looked up what is the definition of a relationship. So, it says a relationship is a connection. um an association or an emotional bond uh between two or more people, groups or things. It defines how parties behave toward, deal with or relate to one another. So there is no emotional bond between me and Reese Witherspoon, even if we’ve both really enjoyed the same book and are just really excited that she, you know, won that trial in uh Legally Blonde. So um the cool thing about pursuing a relationship with God even though God is like God right but also he initiated the relationship. It isn’t just me reading about him and trying to get closer to him like I might you know you might read about your favorite celebrity and try to learn more about their lives. He actually came to earth first. He created us in his image. sent his own son to live here and experience life as a human and actually die on our behalf. So he made the biggest step forward in starting this relationship so that we could just reciprocate back, right? And so that’s what’s really different about a relationship with God. Um so we’re going to dive into that a little bit more today as we kick off this series. And I also have a special guest that I’ll invite up um shortly um who’s going to help me share about this.

But before we dive in, I’ll pray and then we’ll get started. Um God, thank you so much that you took the biggest step first to start a relationship with us and that we can feel confident that that is something that you desire to have. Um I pray that that would be clear and that we would all learn more about that um through our time here this morning. We love you. Amen.

So the verse I believe help my unbelief is very familiar. Um I think a lot of us have heard it but I want to tell the story that it that verse is part of. So there was a time this is from Mark 9. If you have this isn’t all going to be up on the screen. I’m just going to tell you a little story and then we’ll read directly from the Bible. But so Jesus um goes up on this mountain. He takes James and John and Peter, his like all-star disciples, up on the mountain with him. They spend like a week up there. They’re meeting with like Moses and Elijah. And God speaks to them and he’s like, “This is my son.” And Peter’s like, “This is awesome. Let’s build some tents and just stay up here forever because then we don’t have to deal with the other disciples and like all of the Pharisees who keep arguing with us and the crowds and all the things.” And Jesus is like, “No, that’s not really why we came up here.” So they come back down and they come down and like as Peter sort of anticipated, the scribes are kind of arguing with the disciples. There’s some problem that is happening. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, here we are again.” So this is where we’ll pick up in verse 17, which may or may not be on the screen. Um, so Jesus is like, “What’s going on?” And so someone in the crowd answers him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” He answered them, “Oh faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” Maybe Jesus is thinking he should have stayed up on the mountain and built the tent, too. I don’t know.

So they brought the boy to him and when the spirit saw him immediately it convulsed the boy and he fell on the ground and rolled around foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” He said to him, “From childhood and it has often cast him into fire and water to destroy him. If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus said to him, “If you can, all things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said,”I do believe. Help my unbelief.” When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out. And the boy was like a corpse. And most of them said he’s dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, lifted him up, and he arose.

So, a couple of observations about that passage. Obviously, this a miraculous thing happened, right? Jesus removed this evil spirit. This boy was healed. Um, but I want to focus on the father. So, the father, I think, showed some humility in that he didn’t just say, “No, Jesus, I do believe.” Like he could have just said that when Jesus was like what do you mean if you can anyone who believes like anything is possible but the father didn’t just just say no no no I do believe he acknowledged and I have unbelief in me and I would like your help with that unbelief. In that interaction I think the father went from just knowing who Jesus was to having a relationship with Jesus. He actually understood like this is a man who can do this and so I’m going to acknowledge to him humbly that there is unbelief in me and let him work with that. He moved from knowing about to actually knowing and that’s the thing that God wants to have with us. So [clears throat] some of you may know I’ve worked with international students for around 20 the past 20 years or so in various capacities. Um, in that time, um, probably 10 or 15 years ago, I started hearing this name. I was working with, um, a ministry called Bridges International on campus at MSU. And people would say, “Oh, do you know Barbara and CJ? Do you know Barbara and CJ?” Um, so CJ, if you want to start making your way up here, you can. Um, and I hadn’t met them yet, but they were clearly famous in the international student community. And, um, so people were like, “You have to meet them. You have to meet them.” And so it was probably about I think you can grab that one. It was probably about 10 years ago. We were preparing for our furniture giveaway, which we do every August. It’s coming up again this August on the 22nd. Um so if you’re interested in helping or have furniture to donate, this is my shameless plug. But we were setting up and I heard somebody say like Barbara and CJ are arriving. And so I was like, I should meet them. And so Barbara, CJ’s wife, came in and she had an entourage of students and friends with her and she said, “We have some glasses. My friends and I, we went thrift shopping because we knew that students need glasses.” So we went to some thrift stores and just bought glasses and we brought them to give away. And I was like, “Of course she did that.” Um, so from there we have interacted pretty significantly over the past decade in a in a number of things with international students and I can say that Barbara and CJ have become um some significant mentors to me and even our family and I [laughter] I didn’t think that I would be emotional about that. But we’ve had some really serious conversations with them over the years as we’ve made big decisions and I just really admire their relationship with God that they have had over many, many decades. They’ve been walking with God longer than I’ve been alive. And so I would love um to just interview CJ this morning. And I think that we can all learn from his wisdom that he has gained over the past 85 years. He just told me this morning. So, I feel like I can say it um again, but I I hope [laughter] so.

This is CJ Len. Some of you may know him. Um he and his wife are part of Cross View, our our sister church across town. So, um I have a few questions I want to ask and CJ, you are welcome to elaborate as you would like on those questions. So my first question for you, can you describe what it looked like way back when you moved from just knowing about God to having a relationship with him? And feel free to take that whatever direction you’d like.

Well, you know, that’s pretty important question. A lot of people can say, “Oh, yeah.” And you know, a big story about this very very uh dramatic time that totally changed their life at that moment. I never had that. You know, I I kind of always knew about God and and slowly over the years, he became more and more real to me. And that’s still happening now. Uh it’s an ongoing thing. It’s not back there. It’s right now. And I think the other story is fantastic. That’s great that people have it. Some people need that. But if you think that’s what you’ve got to have, I didn’t. And I feel like I know to walk with God now. And that’s the important thing. Not what happened then, what’s happening now. And and I’m not some big expert. Let me tell you uh very briefly. I’ll tell you I’m is more mixed up than most of you are. Uh my wife didn’t come today. She’s in and she’s pretty depressed. We’ve got a 30 something year old grandson who spent more time in prison than he’s been out. He has a problem with drugs. Uh he was out on roll and stayed with us at our house. Uh this week he left. He left in my van. I haven’t seen my van since. And u that’s pretty important to most of us is our transportation. I’ve got another grandchild who uh is Asberers who is trans. She lives in a group home here in town. So walking with the Lord and knowing the Lord does not mean you’re not going to run into all sorts of complications. And I’m not an authority to tell you, boy, life will be great this way. It should be better, but all your problems not going to be long.

Thanks, CJ. [clears throat] Um, the next thing I wanted to ask, so we talked about the passage where I believe help my unbelief comes from. Have you had a moment and you you maybe alluded to some things that could lead to a moment like this, but have you had a moment where you felt like this? I believe help my unbelief. And what was that like?

We’re called to follow Jesus, right? That’s not static. That’s ongoing. When Jesus called his followers to follow him, they didn’t stay home and say, “Mark the trail. They went with him.” And Jesus was in a different place constantly. And as he went to those different places, if they wanted to be involved in that relationship with him, they had to go. In fact, the Bible tells us that we’re to walk in the light of the will of God, but we’re also to keep in step with the spirit. From my military days, when you kept in step, you were right there. You weren’t way back there someplace. That means you right now today should constantly be facing some kind of challenges. Every one of those is going to be Lord I believe I want to do this but and we can come up with all kinds of buts and each step of life should be Lord you got to help me through this you’ve got to help my belief I’ll never make

One of the things we’ve appreciated about Barbara and CJ is they’ve been in ministry for how many years, CJ? Have you been a pastor?

Well, I went to seminary when I was 30, 31, and started pastoring church two weeks after I started seminary. [laughter] Okay. Church people were very nice to me and helped. So, it’s been that long. I’m 85. You can do the math. I’m not too good at math.

Longer than I’ve been alive.

But I wish Barbara was here because she’s really the minister in our family.

One of the things we’ve really appreciated about them is outside of his actual pastoral ministry, which he’s now officially retired [music] from, um, the work that they have done in their own personal lives with their family, as he mentioned, with their grandchildren and then with international students and have really just made their whole lives into a ministry and have stayed open-minded to changing with the times and shifting so that they can in the best ways for the people that are significant to them. Um CJ, could you share like what are some essential elements of your relationship with God now?

Well, over the years, again, that’s changed because I haven’t wanted to be static in one place. Uh over the years after I retired, we made a decision that we wanted to minister to people not in church. And so, we kept trying to cultivate those relationships like that. And the church business was great. We did that for years. But we try to make friends with people who have nothing to do with church. So, what did we do? We went to the campus and found people there who were not going to show up church. Not too many of them here are there. We went other places. Of course, with our family, we went to AA meetings and NA meets and all of that stuff and met people who weren’t involved in church and who probably weren’t going to go to church. And my wife is a great hostess. Well, her home to those kind of people purposely. And I would encourage you, some of your friends are pretty obnoxious. I lived by one for 20 years. I prayed for him for 20. Never made a difference. You know, he’s still as obnoxious as he was first, but felt like God kind of placed us there. So, what do I do? You know, some of these things I do, I try to approach the Bible in a different way. And by that I grew up as you can tell in the south Southern Baptist and all of that stuff which they would be a born today that there’s this lady up here speaking you know in case you been following the news. So I’ve had a lot of change. I respect her. I think she’s in the right place doing the right thing. So I try to look at the Bible a little bit different way sometimes. And one of the things I do with that is I rewrite the Bible. Yeah, that’s what I said. [laughter] I rewrite the Bible. I sit down and I don’t read a few verses. I try to read a minimum of a whole chapter at a time. And I aim for three chapters a day.

Okay? And I found that reading the Bible that way rather this snippet, that snippet, and this snippet makes a world of difference because Jesus will start a conversation here and he’ll move over to here and he’ll move over to here and then he comes back over here. And you read either one of those and you get a different view from them. But you read them all together and you see Jesus is moving towards place, moving towards a point of view. And it takes all of those things to get that point of view. Read what Jesus says about marriage. Read that whole section. And sometimes you’ll come out or about divorce. You’ll come out in a different place. You won’t often hear. He says, “And do it for yourself.” You got the Holy Spirit. If you’ve been born again, if you’ve been saved, if you’re living in a relationship with Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit living within you. Who wrote the Bible?

You don’t need a seminary degree. All you do is read God’s word. and let the Holy Spirit, the spirit of God tell you why he had those people write those words. That makes a big difference in in my life. And also, I’ve tried to look at some of my faith and and re-examine some of them. A lot of my beliefs I formed when I was older teenager when our family started going to church and that’s where I picked them up. And when I look at them, some of them are pretty childish because I was a child. That was my capacity. And I try to relook at a lot of those things and reformulate them. And some I say that’s tradition. Put it down over there. That was church stuff. Put it down over there. That’s from the Lord. Let’s keep it there. You’re growing. You’re changing. You’re not the person you were 10, 20, 30 years ago, five years ago. Look at those things afresh and in you and let the spirit bring them alive. Barbara and I have been married 65 years by one. Our relationship is pretty different from what it was when we were started dating as teenagers. Different from what it was in the early years of our marriage, but it’s a deeper relationship because it’s a growing relationship. And that’s truth with any relationship needs to be growing, developing work. It’s working.

All right, one more question for you. What encouragement would you give to younger people um who are seeking relationship with God or maybe currently struggling in their relationship with God?

You’re always going to have a struggle. If you’re a growing Christian, you’re going to have a struggle. You know, if you in relationship with other people. There’s always things that you have to work through. And that’s just true with us with your relationship with the Lord. You’ve got to work through those things. But remember, as it was mentioned earlier in the Garden of Eden, God came looking for the sinners. He didn’t even see them as sinners. He came looking to walk with them in relationship. They didn’t have to go searching for him. I never have done much searching for God. He’s always found me. Even times when I went a long way away from God, it was if he had a string tied to me for a smile, he’d give it a jersey. Still got my boy. I’m still watching. Come on. Come on. God wants relationship with you. Jesus died to have a relationship with you.

All right.

Thanks, CJ.

Thank you.

You can stay up here, or you can you can go down. Either way.

I wanted to share a quote kind of in closing um about belief and unbelief. This is from um Charles Spurgeon. So, I’m going to read it twice because it took me a little bit to wrap my mind around what he was saying, but it says, “Help my unbelief is something a man can only say by faith. While men have no faith, they are unconscious of their belief. As soon as they get a little faith, they begin to be conscious of the greatness of their unbelief. I’m going to read that last part again. When men have no faith or women, they are unconscious of their belief. But as soon as they get a little faith, then they begin to be conscious of the greatness of their unbelief. And I think that resonates really well with what CJ shared about the constant need for examination. We don’t just check a box and say, “Now I know who God is.” And then assume that it’s going to be a straight line for the rest of our lives. Our relationships with each other don’t work that way. And of course, our relationship with God won’t either. Um, as I said before, I’ve been so inspired by CJ and his wife because of the way that they will continue to examine their relationship and what they understand of who God is and hold it up to like, is this who God is? Is this what the Bible says? Where is my unbelief playing a role? Where is my belief playing a role? I think it’s just an ongoing life um process for us to keep looking at our relationship with God and pressing into it with whatever each day or stage of life calls for. Um so I want to wrap up with prayer and then I’ll call um John can come on up. I’ve probably got the stage all out of order here, but um I’ll pray and then we’ll move into the rest of the service.

Um God, thanks that you came to pursue us first. Um I think that’s so significant. I’ve watched um you know whether it’s college students who are going into dating relationships or people looking for friends or or whatever people want to feel pursued and the fact that you chose to pursue us first that you created us in your image. Um what an incredible encouragement for us to press into that relationship with you. We’re so grateful that we worship a God who cares for us individually and collectively. And we thank you for that in your son’s name.