Praxis
Praxis
God Is Like Jesus
What comes into our minds when we think about God shapes everything else in our lives. Yet most of us carry distorted images of God that we've picked up from our upbringing, painful experiences, or cultural messages—images that create barriers to authentic relationship with him.
In this episode, we unpack five common misconceptions about God that might be operating beneath the surface of your faith: the Distant Deity who remains uninvolved, the Sovereign Puppet Master who controls everything, the Cosmic Cop who's always disappointed, the Vending Machine God who exists to fulfill our wishes, and the Passive Enabler who never confronts our destructive patterns.
These false images create profound spiritual consequences. They make us hide when we fail, blame God when we suffer, and live as functional atheists in our daily lives. But what if there's a clearer, more accurate picture?
We explore how Jesus provides the perfect revelation of God's character. Looking at Jesus shows us a God of cruciform love—self-giving, non-coercive, and deeply present—who moves toward us in our brokenness rather than away. This truth doesn't just correct our theology; it heals our hearts.
Whether you're struggling with disappointment in God, battling shame, or simply longing for a more authentic connection with your Creator, this conversation offers practical ways to examine your core beliefs and make Jesus your interpretive key. Because when we see God as truly like Jesus, everything changes.
Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. So we're in a series right now focused on our mental models for missional discipleship a framework for living out our faith as disciples of Jesus in everyday life. Whether we're aware of it or not, we all have mental models, deep convictions and assumptions that shape how we see and take action in the world.
Katie:Mental models are kind of like prescription lenses While they're often invisible when we're mirroring them, they consistently shape the way we think and feel and act. So what were the mental models that Jesus lived by? What convictions shaped how Jesus saw people, responded to needs, formed disciples and joined God's mission in the world? That's what this series is all about. Each week, we are unpacking a key conviction that shaped Jesus's way of life, and then we're exploring how it can shape ours too, as we seek to be a community of disciples living on mission in the way of Jesus. And today we're going to look at the third core conviction, and it's this God is like Jesus. Let's get into it.
Mac:Well, welcome podcasters. My name is Mac, I'm Katie, I'm Josiah, so I want to get us chatting a little bit, and one question I thought of and I don't know the answer for either one of you is what is the worst job you've ever had?
Katie:Oh, I know mine easy. I worked on an assembly line one summer in a factory making little Dunkerers syrups.
Josiah:Did you guys know this about me?
Katie:With yeah. Shout out to Melissa Schmidt that goes to our church. She and I worked it together, which made it kind of fun Like sure You're working with a friend working with a friend. But yeah, we had to wear hair nuts and we had literally stood on a line and we had little cardboard like cardboard slots with three holes and we'd put those. They're like individual syrup packs that you could think of dunking French toast sticks into.
Katie:You open it up and you could dunk them in there and you'd put three right side up and then flip three upside down and then you'd put it through the glue gun machine and hopefully not burn your finger and it was like eight hours, maybe 10 hour shift. It was long days in the summer.
Mac:What inspired you to apply for that job.
Katie:Nothing. I just needed a job. I had worked at a coffee shop for the past couple of years, like through high school, and then my summer, right before I was going to college, the coffee shop changed management, so I just needed a job. I was just desperate, and jobs weren't as easy to come by as they are now. Now it's like high schoolers can work anywhere, um, and I was going to be going to Europe for the end of summer, so I had. I just needed something for a couple months to make money.
Mac:That is hilarious.
Josiah:That's funny, sheesh. Yeah, I, I don't know, I have a lot of terrible jobs. Maybe this is more about how I about how I relate to boring jobs. You know, like that they all seem terrible. I did have I worked at a truck stop. That wasn't great, it was like a pilot travel center.
Mac:What did you do there?
Josiah:Well, everything Cashier sometimes. But Do you have to clean the bathrooms?
Katie:Yeah, oh God, and clean the showers oh, that might be worse than the assembly so that's far worse.
Josiah:That sounds nasty. I will say that the the women's bathrooms were always dirtier than the men's, though I always thought that was interesting, that kind of oh, that's interesting but no, there was some. There were some doozies of stories where you walk in and you're just like what happened in here.
Mac:Oh gross, so gross.
Josiah:I didn't care for that and it was 24 hours, so sometimes you'd have to work like the third shift and you're there in the middle of the night and no one's there, and it's torture.
Katie:Yeah, was that in high school?
Josiah:No, actually that was when I came back from spending the year abroad in Sydney.
Mac:That was the first job I got, because I just needed something, yeah, so there's a common theme here, which is desperation. I was also desperate for a job, and it was a wonky situation because it was right after I graduated from college and before Josie and I got married. It was like less than eight weeks.
Mac:So you just need something you know, to step into and Josie's brother worked at this door company called Hardwood and it was the worst job I've ever had. First of all, it was very physically demanding, so it was hard, like you had to plane wood boards and all this stuff. But the boss you guys was like had the shortest. I mean he was constantly blowing his fuse, losing his sauce, yelling. He had to have been on drugs most of the time and you didn't know if you were going to get paid or not, because he wasn't good with managing the flow of cash through the organization.
Josiah:It's terrible.
Mac:It was horrible. I was glad when that was over and, quite frankly, we made one really cool door. It was like a custom door, but the rest of them were really crummy.
Josiah:You didn't feel good about your work product.
Mac:No, I didn't feel good about what we were doing. It was all this cheap particle stuff and then you just put a thin veneer on the top. Okay, real quick.
Josiah:All this like cheap particle stuff, and then you just put a thin veneer on the top, you know. So Well, okay, real quick. What's?
Katie:the favorite part-time, meaningless job you had.
Josiah:Working at coffee shops.
Katie:I worked at what's now Java Hut downtown.
Josiah:Yeah.
Katie:WDG Beans and then in college worked at Starbucks and, yeah, I always loved it.
Mac:Domino's Pizza man. Yeah, I knew that was your answer. You talked about yeah.
Josiah:I, um, I did, I worked. You mentioned the physical labor. I worked. Uh, I did roofing for a summer and you liked it. I don't know, I loved it. Wow, it's just something about the shuts your brain off when you're just like working with your hands and your body.
Katie:You know like it could be hot.
Josiah:It was hot. But it was a couple of my friends and they were. They were idiots, and the boss was a Jehovah's witness who was convinced he was one of the 144,000. He would talk to us about it. So that was kind of fun. I love encountering people like that.
Mac:Yeah, Well, speaking of assembly lines, you know, and interesting jobs we're-.
Katie:Indoors.
Mac:Yeah, we've got a fun conversation lined up today. I'm excited about it.
Katie:We do.
Josiah:Yeah, yeah, so we're in this series. We're focused on the mental models of missional discipleship. These mental models serve as a framework for living out our faith as disciples of Jesus in everyday life. They're like lenses that dictate how we see and interpret things, convictions that keep us focused on the right things. So in each episode we're exploring some of these core convictions, our mental models, these truths and convictions that anchor us and guide us as we go about being a community of disciples who live on mission in the way of Jesus. But, as we're finding out, these aren't just our mental models. We believe that these were the core convictions that guided Jesus as well. Jesus had these same lenses on when making and multiplying disciples to join God's mission in the world. So far, we've covered two of them right. The first was God's presence precedes our participation, and the second was God bends to meet us in reality. And today we're going to unpack a third one that's central to missional discipleship that God is like Jesus, and we're going to see how this conviction really does change everything.
Mac:Yeah, can I say this, josiah, your beard's looking awesome. Oh yeah, thanks.
Katie:Does it look different than normal?
Mac:No, it's just filling in nicely. I mean, I feel like-.
Josiah:I adjusted my trimmer up two millimeters, okay, yeah, well, it's making a big difference. Keep going, okay. I mean, uh, I did adjust.
Mac:I adjusted my trimmer up two millimeters, okay, yeah, well, it's making a big difference. Keep going, okay, um, I went to mean shorter or longer, longer.
Mac:Yeah, there it is. I knew I noticed something. I, uh, so I, this is a big deal. I went to um.
Mac:I went to Bethel university for my undergrad and majored in biblical studies and theology. And I remember my very first theology class I had to take. It was during my sophomore year. I had this professor named Paul Eddy and the guy is just brilliant. He ended up being one of my favorite profs. I had Took him as much as I could. He was so knowledgeable. But my very first day he started the class with this AW Tozer quote and AW Tozer was actually a CMA guy from our denomination.
Mac:He said what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. And then the professor just said and the rest of this class is gonna be focused on you answering that question and cause this is what theology is all about what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. So I think at the start of this episode I kind of I just wanna name like pretty much everybody's doing theology, like everybody when they think, when they hear the word God, something comes to mind, and so we're all carrying around thoughts or ideas about what God is like or what God isn't like. In fact, I remember in a different class, an apologetics course. They gave us this little tool where it was like hey, if you ever encounter an atheist who says they don't believe in God, ask them what kind of God don't you believe in, and they'll often be able to fill out things. They'll have a description and, more often than not, you'll probably be able to agree with them. I also don't believe that God is like that or that a God like that exists.
Mac:The point is is that I just think that we all are doing theology, we're all carrying around ideas about God in our brains, some of which may be accurate, but some of which probably aren't accurate, and that leads to this obvious problem of projection that we tend to take our circumstances or experiences usually negative ones and then project those onto heaven, assuming that my circumstances reveal God's character or what God's like, and then we run around with crummy ideas about God in our brains, which very much influences how we relate or don't relate to God, and so let's just pause there and go. Are you guys tracking with what I'm saying, like everybody's doing theology? Just pause there and go. Are you guys tracking with what I'm saying, like everybody's doing theology? It's a mixed bag. Some of us have good things, things we get right, some of us don't, and we have this problem with projecting onto God things that probably aren't accurate.
Katie:Yeah.
Mac:Do you guys see that too?
Katie:Yeah, it's timely that we're having this conversation today, cause I literally just had a conversation with someone recently about how pivotal this idea was for her. She shared how, mac, you've shared this idea before and you must have shared it in a sermon in the past year or so. I don't know mine about how our idea of God will determine how we relate to him, and she just narrated how she had this idea of God that he was constantly looking down kind of disappointed her in her for all her failures and mistakes and just had lots of shame and something about like that concept.
Katie:And then really the parable of the prodigal father, the prodigal son, prodigal father, kind of chasing after his wayward children and going after them in love, allowed her to relate to God in a totally different way and come before him and that actually led to her kind of receiving the restoration and the love that she longed for but hadn't been able to receive it because she didn't actually see this picture of God as wanting to give it.
Mac:Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
Mac:So I see that, yeah, I mean as a pastor, I experience this pretty much constantly when there's tragedy. I mean, given that I've been pastoring for a long time, I've seen some hard stuff, Like I've been one of the first responders on a suicide, I've been with a couple who lost one child and then lost a second child, just nine months old, from cancer just heartbreaking. I've been there when people die of cancer, despite praying for an opposite outcome for months and months. I just witnessed a lot of hard stuff marital upsets and broken relationships and horrible diagnoses or whatever. The number one thing that people often struggle with, in addition to the loss or the grief, is just like how do I make sense of God in light of this experience, these horrendous circumstances, especially if we just look globally? It's like you know what I mean. People are asking that question all the time, given what's happening overseas and all the conflicts, and like where is God in light of all of this?
Josiah:You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, when we go through stuff and our frame of God gets disrupted or shaken, I think it's sort of proof that we've been projecting some things from our circumstances, Like when everything lined up and our circumstances were the way that we thought they should be, then God's fine. But when they aren't now, God's like hey, God like what, what, what gives? I think we we often do this with our what gives yeah?
Josiah:for real. But uh, we do this with our first formation a lot Like our, our family of origin, very like, I think. We subconsciously do it like from a psychological perspective, like all the time and we project onto other relationships as well. But we do it with God, like the way I was parented might have a strong might give me a strong sense of how God is like a parent to me.
Katie:Oh, interesting, so like if I like.
Josiah:I'm often going to relate to God the way I related to my earthly father right, so I think that's a strong one too, For sure For sure.
Mac:So I wanted to just sort of set the table to say we're all doing theology. We tend to project things onto God that aren't true about God, or at least we need to be aware of that tendency. My friends, our friends Matt Tebbe and Ben Sternke, have an entire chapter on this, what we're going to be talking about today in their book Having the Mind of Christ, which is just an awesome book. We went through it as a preaching team and just so I just recommend it. It's a great book.
Mac:But they said this deep in our bones all of us believe things about God that we would never circle as the right answer on a theology test.
Mac:So part of this, you guys, if you're gonna join this conversation today, you just gotta kind of acknowledge that, Like, I probably believe some things about God that I wouldn't circle. I know the answer is this and yet, deep down, my public belief is this. I'd say this, but my private and even my core belief actually might be something different. And so we all have these false beliefs, these distorted ideas about God that we kind of carry around. We have some bad theology. And so, going back to Matt and Ben, I love how they say this. They go. Sometimes the hardest part of learning who God is is to unlearn who God is not. So that's part of what I hope we can do in our conversation today is just to acknowledge we all are carrying around probably some bad ideas about God and our first step is to sort of unlearn what those are, so that we can maybe move toward a more accurate understanding of who God is and how God relates to us.
Josiah:Yeah, no, I was gonna say before we get into them. I would invite the listener to just take a second and be willing to acknowledge that this is actually one of the more difficult parts of discipleship, I would say, or at least in helping train people, like in our discipleship curriculum. This is what we do Constant unpacking of bad news that isn't good news right.
Josiah:And I would say the primary hangup is people being willing to admit when their view of God is wrong. Yes, and it's not from necessarily an intellectual perspective as much as it is being willing to admit that I believed something about God that wasn't true about him. It feels really exposing.
Josiah:So I'd say, if you're, listening, take a second and just like be willing to admit when these things are at play in your life, um, because it's, it's sort of the, it's the breeding ground for, um, maybe the fruit God wants to produce in your life.
Mac:Building on. Last week, remember we talked about how God stoops to meet us in reality. This is what that's about.
Mac:It's about getting honest with what we really think and believe so that God can meet us there and then speak to it. I was once in a leadership intensive leading a group and there was this woman who was clearly there's something going on, there's something going on internally. I was once in a leadership intensive leading a group and there was this woman who was clearly there's something going on, there's something going on internally, and we were kind of giving her permission to be honest and this I think it went on for a couple of weeks and then she had like this moment where she totally lost it in the group.
Katie:Lost it how?
Mac:Like just had this like almost overwhelming breakdown of honesty, where she got up and started pacing around the room and then said you know what, I'm effing angry at God. And then it came out. That's what she said I'm effing angry at God. And everybody looked at her and she couldn't believe she said it. And then she said it again, and then a third time. It was like this catharsis that she finally got it out I'm angry. And then when she had her meltdown moment, it got really quiet and everybody without like nobody did it first, everybody simultaneously started clapping for her because we were like this is it? You've got something going on that's in in obstructing how you're relating to God and you finally got it out on the table and this is a safe place for you to do that. Now. We can love you in this moment. Thank you for being honest. You're angry at God and God can handle your anger.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, and she just didn't feel like she had permission to name it. Yeah, I hear you guys both saying it's important to get honest and to admit, and I might submit that even sometimes there's a step before that, which is just getting aware. Like I know, when I first encountered this material, I was like, well, I don't think any of these things about God, and it really took me some time to recognize how these beliefs were showing up. So sometimes I think we're just not maybe in tune of how we're holding some of these beliefs.
Mac:Yeah, so we have five most common ways people get God wrong and we're gonna go over those with you. But if you need some extra like encouragement, to be honest, I will name that for me. I still can be drawn into every single one of these. So just I'm right there with you, you can be honest. Every single one of these. So just I'm right there with you, you can be honest. We all struggle with these and yet they do very much block an accurate understanding of God from our perspective.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, and if you've gone through one of our year-long leadership intensives at Crosspoint, these will sound familiar to you.
Katie:Like you said, josiah, this is a key part of how we move through discipleship here. So maybe a first sort of misconception about God I would name is what we call the distant deity, and this is this idea that God is kind of like an impersonal force out there. He's kind of more like a spiritual energy than like a real, like a personal being. The idea of the distant deity has this idea of God that he's uninvolved, emotionally detached, unmoved by human pain, doesn't really speak or move or respond, but just this idea of kind of being absent or uninterested, as if God sort of created the world and then just stepped back and watch it all unfold. I think I see this play out quite a bit, especially maybe in circles where Christianity is sort of more cultural, like this idea that like, yeah, I'm a Christian because I, you know, practice Easter and Christmas and do certain things, but it's more like a set of practices or traditions or maybe even beliefs that I hold, but not like a communion with God. What would you guys say?
Josiah:Yeah, I'd say I see this. The way this plays out is it often creates this sacred secular divide that like there are things I do in life that involve myself in the sacred or the things God does, but most of my life is spent void of God's presence and his involvement. Like if I go to work, I'm of my life is spent void of God's presence and his involvement, Like if I go to work, I'm not assuming God is at work and in my workplace I'm going to do that and I do my church duty because that like attributes something to God on Sunday mornings and the rest of the week is kind of lived apart from him.
Katie:God lives at church, and that's it, yeah.
Mac:Can I say something for me? I think that this is still one that I have a hard time with, and there's sort of maybe a few times that this idea that God is a distant deity sort of rears its head for me. One is in desperate moments, in desperate moments, in moments where I'm sort of up against something that feels really hard and isn't being resolved and maybe even feels like it's just getting worse. It's so tempting for me to go like where are you, god? Like don't you care? Like the disciples in the boat when Jesus is sleeping, he's like don't you care that we're about to drown.
Mac:I'll say for me, when I'm in the middle, like I think about my voice issues which are still sort of there, but a couple of years ago I couldn't talk for like two months, and every day I'm just like God, you've please heal me, and it's just not getting better. And you're just like God where? Like don't you care? Where are you? Are you even here? And so I think sometimes, when we're really up against it in life, it's so tempting to go. If God cared, we assume it would mean this, and because this isn't happening, well, god must be absent, you following, yeah. And so I just named that for myself. I feel like a strong pull towards this idea that God is distant or doesn't care when life it feels overwhelming and like it's not getting better.
Katie:Yeah, the assumption being, if he cared, he'd fix it.
Mac:Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think another time, if I'm honest, and I'm actually going to preach on this in September it's the problem of God's hiddenness. There's a classic problem in theology called the hiddenness of God, which has to do with like, if God is present and at work and meets us in reality, why does it sometimes seem like nothing's there, like you're talking to nothing but air? Why is that? In other words, if God wants to have a personal relationship with us and really cares about us and wants to experience intimacy with us, why is it that, despite our best effort, often at times, and creating tons of space to be with God, you still often don't feel anything, you don't sense anything, and that can also reinforce I know for me, I've had to work through that that can reinforce this idea that because I'm not feeling anything or sensing something, maybe God isn't really present here Does that make sense.
Mac:So I think there's a lot of circumstantial components that can contribute to this idea that God is a distant deity not only hardship or the lack of experiencing his presence, but also, as you named, culturally. We're just sort of conditioned to operate as functional atheists. Where there's this secular divide, I do my job, where that's on me, this is my life, and then this is sort of the pocket on Sunday where God's present and I'm engaged. But there's sort of a sharp compartmentalization or separation between these two, which does really bad work. Okay, so one misconception is this distant deity.
Mac:A second one I would name is this idea that God is sort of a sovereign puppet master. This one, I think, is super common in the church. I encounter it, quite frankly, all the time, and it's rooted in a certain view of God's sovereignty. That God's sovereignty means God is perfectly in control, and so the idea is God is sort of controlling everything, he's micromanaging everything, and so that means everything must happen for a reason. You guys encounter this one at all. How many times have you heard that you guys encounter this one at all? How many times have you heard that you guys experienced this one?
Katie:Oh yeah.
Mac:And kind of going back to the difficult experience thing, like when you're facing the loss of a loved one or a child or some of the things I mentioned earlier. I've noticed that when people are facing incredible tragedy or human suffering, overwhelming circumstances, or even looking at the state of the world, like I mentioned before, Some people draw on this sentiment in a way that, like I don't know, seems to help them. Well, God's in control, and they get some degree of comfort from that. I'm going to say this to the degree we mean that God is still on the throne. Yes and amen.
Mac:But I'm going to confess to you that I have never really found a whole lot of comfort in the sentiment that God is in control when facing horrible circumstances in my life. Because if that's true, that God is perfectly in control and I'm sitting in horrible circumstances, like watching a nine month old take their last breaths, then that means that God is the one who is responsible for these horrible circumstances, and I don't find that comforting at all. In fact, I find it very hard to love a God that would be controlling something like that. So for me that's actually more of an impediment to my faith than something that is like comforting or encouraging to me.
Katie:Yeah, it's almost as if, in saying God is in control, we're implying that God is controlling everything.
Mac:Yeah, yeah Right. It's rooted in determinism and like a fatalism that, like God, is sort of preordained and controlling everything that happens and, as we're going to see later on, just kind of plant a seed. If Jesus actually reveals what God is like, that is not at all what we see Jesus doing.
Josiah:Yeah my life is. I like to believe in a fate, that my life is going to mean something and that I have a certain amount of significance and one day it might be actualized. Right, if I reach to this point and God is like leading me on all of these steps and I'm like, okay, god, you got this. Like Jesus, take the wheel.
Mac:Have you seen that meme of there's like a meme with Jesus standing by a wall with all these wheels.
Josiah:That he's taking.
Katie:It's really funny. It's still a good song, yeah, yeah.
Josiah:I think I want to believe that. And so it starts to I don't know like little things I can find myself going through, like you get stuck in traffic and you don't get somewhere on time and in your mind you're like, well, maybe that needed to happen in order for this to happen, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I am tempted to want to believe that and it's great when things are good, if things work out. I have some circumstances in my life that they weren't great, but I clearly can see there was a redemptive arc to things that were happening. So it's nice to think of it that way. But when things aren't going great, then you start blaming God right and for things that he didn't do.
Katie:That's right. Yeah, this makes me think of something I recently heard someone say. There was a woman who hadn't had children even though she really wanted them, and she said God has destined me for childlessness for his purposes, something like that.
Mac:The blessing of infertility.
Katie:Yeah, right, and it just made me think, like you know look, I could be wrong I'm willing to hold my beliefs with some level of humility. But I just hear that and I go. I don't know that we can be certain that, like when she was born, god looked at her and said like you are going to be childless Now can God use that Absolutely Like? Can God use that to shape your character and-.
Josiah:Yeah, and stories of adoption and things, kids that were in brokenness.
Katie:There's all sorts of ways to use that situation to join God's redemptive work in the world 100%, but I don't know that that means that, like when she was born, god closed her womb for whatever reason.
Mac:Using something and working within circumstances is a different thing causing something to happen and we still have theological questions we have to wrestle through, which have to do with okay, even if God didn't cause this, then why would God allow this? What kind of God would allow this? And we can obviously there's lots to discuss there, but I think you named something that I want to highlight, which is oftentimes, with this depiction of God that God is sort of this sovereign puppet master with a divine blueprint and everything sort of happening according to God's perfect plan, we end up attributing things to God that probably don't have their source in God, and we do so with a level of certainty that I don't think we should have, and we also, in doing so, ignore the ridiculous amount of complexity that scripture seems to point to that would offset those things. It's very clear to me that in scripture, there are factors, actors and forces that are very much opposing God's will and God's way in the world, and so not everything that's happening is actually happening according to God's perfect plan. Otherwise let's just be honest Jesus wouldn't have to come and he certainly wouldn't teach us to pray. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because everything already would be being perfectly done on earth as it is in heaven.
Mac:We're living in a cosmic, spiritual warfare between good and evil, light and darkness, spiritual warfare between good and evil, light and darkness. And if we look at the fall and brokenness, my goodness, infertility is one of those things. It's one of those things that, to me, is a clear remnant or byproduct of the power of sin at work in a broken world. It's not part of God's good and ideal and perfect plan. Make sense, yeah, so we'll get into this more, but I'm just naming a second common pitfall that we project onto God, which is that God's this control freak, perfectly controlling everything, and I named earlier. I get pulled into all of these. So I've deconstructed this one a lot theologically, but I'll tell you there are still times when I know God isn't coercive and controlling. I know that, I know God is non-coercive love and he works through influence, but when circumstances are crummy, my prayers are often assuming God could just pull a control lever and change everything. So anyway, yeah, distant deity, sovereign puppet master.
Josiah:Yeah, a third one we'll name is that God is a cosmic cop, that he's like a police officer enforcing rules. This frame sort of points to God as primarily like a rule enforcer and that God is like all about the rules, cares mostly about what you do, and God makes the rules and he's the one enforcing them as well. This frame also points out that God is always watching, ready to catch you doing something wrong, to catch you in the act and to shame you and to punish you if you do so. There's like a. I think one of the more sinister natures I should say the more sinister parts of this is that when we view God this way, it seems like our relationship to God is largely it largely hangs on whether we follow the rules or not. So God's love is essentially conditional that God's going to track our successes and failures and then he's going to base his love for us on a certain level of performance. And I think, when I look back at my life, when I was a teenager.
Josiah:I think this is one that I have struggled with the most in my life.
Mac:Why do you think that is?
Josiah:Yeah, well, I think I've since deconstructed it enough. It still comes up, though as a teenager I mean I grew up in church so I don't really remember a certain point when I had like a conversion moment. But I struggled with plenty of vices, just like anybody does, and I was always like this fear would settle in when I made a bad mistake, like I felt scared to go to God. I would try to avoid even thinking about God. I felt scared to go to God. I would try to avoid even thinking about God when I messed up. My first reaction has always been, when I make a mistake, was to hide that, like I don't want anyone to know that was. You know whether that was with my parents at the time or with God. And yeah, it always just felt like God was mad at me whenever I sinned. It's like disappointed, like oh, you were doing so good and now you screwed up.
Josiah:So I don't know. This one was long a struggle and I'm getting better at it, but it's not always, it's still there.
Mac:Yeah, yeah. I imagine if we had a theology test that said multiple choice what is godlike? And one of them was a cosmic cop, most of us would know don't circle that one yeah right.
Mac:But here's the thing about getting to our core beliefs. Our public beliefs are what we'd circle on the theology test. Our core beliefs are revealed based on our behavior. What we actually do shows what we really think and believe in our lives and about God.
Mac:And so the litmus test for this one is what do you do when you mess up? Like you're describing, josiah, when you make a mistake and we talked last episode about learning to hug your cactus, those prickly parts, you know moving towards those and embracing those, knowing God's waiting for you there. And if I had my guess, it's a mixed bag for all of us. Like I know, god's love isn't conditioned upon my moral performance, that it doesn't rise and fall each moment based on how I'm doing. And yet, just like you in high school, josiah, if I'm honest, when I mess up, when I make a mistake, when I'm not at my best, well, it's not always my first inclination to run into the arms of mercy. I know it's there, but in reality there's still that default to try to hide and to not want to face it. And right, oh yeah, so I think this one runs deep.
Katie:Oh it does. Yeah, I can see it in myself for sure. I also have a really good friend that I can see as kind of. This is her primary MO and you know, she, she kind of lived under this guilt and shame and always tried she would make comments like I'm trying, I'm trying and this faith thing just isn't working for me. And what happened is she ended up walking away from faith altogether, which is actually, I think, a really common. I have plenty of friends I could point to that have followed that trajectory and when you look at it it kind of makes sense. Look at it. It kind of makes sense, cause if you're living under that guilt and shame of constantly having to to perform and play by the rules and not mess up, the only way to get free from that burden is to just walk away.
Mac:Right. I mean, if you had a friend who is doing that, you'd probably go. This isn't a healthy friendship. Right To constantly have your you like, right right right. We probably put some boundaries in place to limit that kind of.
Katie:Right. Who wants to live under that forever?
Josiah:That's true. Yeah, it's tough. I think this one runs deep in a lot of circles. I know that some of this was not just me thinking something on my own. It was definitely formed in me at a younger age. At a younger age, I just think the circles I swam in. The primary mode of discipleship was behavior correction. Right right, that being a disciple meant you become better at doing things and you sin less. And so when you struggle with sin, it's like when you're doing good, it's like okay, I fit. And so when you struggle with sin, it's like when you're doing good, it's like okay, I fit. And when you don't now, it's like you feel like a cutoff from even the whole community.
Mac:Right, you mentioned first formation, and I would imagine we still have a couple more things we tend to project on God, examining how you grew up and what kind of home you experienced, because that very may well play into which one of these is most predominant for you. If you grew up with parents who were largely absent and absent and didn't care about you, well, the distant deity thing might be. If you had parents that were really controlling, well then this might the second one. If you had parents that were very strong on right and wrong and behavior and you felt like their love was conditional, right, you can see, it's not a hard leap to go up. That probably shaped the way I view God.
Josiah:Yeah, and not all of it is. I mean, people are people. They're not perfect. So even parents who are doing their best are probably still going to project some of these things onto you and form you in ways. My dad is an Enneagram 1, so he didn't make a lot of mistakes. It just seemed like the things that I struggled with weren't a problem for him, and I know that I had to do something healthy, like hey, I'm not wired the same way and if I make more mistakes than him, I'm not less worthy of love. So it's been good. But like observing that has been healthy for me to see. Oh, this is shame talking. This is like this is viewing God differently. That's not the face he's making at me right now.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, that's a good point about first formation, and I'm laughing a little bit because the next one that I want to name, if I had to guess how my kids see me, it's probably this one, and it's the vending machine God. Oh yeah, like Mom, I want this, I want that, I want that. So the vending machine God is, we could say, probably like an American favorite.
Mac:Like Oprah, you get it.
Katie:You get it, yeah, yeah. And it's just this idea that we use God to improve our lives, kind of this prosperity gospel idea. Alex and I were watching a TV preacher one time and I don't know, just for fun, I guess and he literally said verbatim God doesn't want you to be stuck in middle management, he wants you to move up and be an executive. And we looked at each other. We were like wait, what Come again. So I think it's just like we have this idea that God wants me to live my best life and be my best self and he wants health and success and comfort and as long as I do what I'm supposed to do, he'll deliver on this promise to make me happy and healthy and wealthy and all of that. So I feel like I see this one a lot. If I'm honest, it's probably the one where I do struggle the most. I can see myself going here for sure. So I'm not just ripping on the TV preacher, although I guess I am in middle management and I'm very happy.
Mac:I don't know what would you guys say to that one. God wants you to move up.
Mac:That's funny, and this is connected to the previous one, because the way a vending machine works is you like put in coins and then you get back what you want. You type in the numbers or whatever and boop out. This pops and, with this view, often it's hey, the thing I'm putting in the coinage I'm putting in is prayer or giving or whatever behavior, and then that produces this response, sort of a quid pro quo. And yes, in a culture, in an American culture, where it's all about, like, upward mobility and climbing the ladder of success and improving my life, it's easy to sort of then treat God as I do these things so that I can get this kind of a life. But even those like us who are serving in a church, I still struggle with this too, cause it's like the coins I'm putting in the slot are like but I've given my life to you. Like you know, I've got my my, my entire life is revolving around serving you. So couldn't you like make this a little easier.
Katie:You know what I mean.
Mac:Certainly it produced. And yet I know, like Jesus died on a cross, all of the disciples were martyred for their faith. Like I know this, but it's still like this momentum to go. Hey, doesn't this thing I'm doing for you, or whatever, mean something better?
Katie:Yeah.
Mac:You know, yeah.
Josiah:Yeah, I think this one is very influenced by our Western culture. I think the the idea that of what success looks like. So is it. Is it wrong to think that God wants me to be um fulfilled and and to live a life that's meaningful and impactful and to be happy and at peace? No, it's not wrong, but my picture of what that looks like really doesn't look like the way of Jesus, and the way of Jesus needs to sort of transcend cultural lines. Needs to sort of transcend cultural lines. If my view of what it looks like to live in the way of Jesus can only be done so in an affluent area in Midwestern Wisconsin, then it's probably inaccurate.
Mac:Yeah, it seems like we get. This is probably another podcast entirely, but we get what the what scripture says and what God wants for us with regard to freedom. Totally wrong In our culture. It's freedom to pursue what us with regard to freedom totally wrong.
Mac:In our culture it's freedom to pursue what I want, to act on my desires, but in scripture it's like freedom from disordered desires so that we can be faithful to the way of Jesus and in a culture that prioritizes our own happiness, whatever's gonna make you happy. And oftentimes our happiness is, in our culture, connected to disordered desires. It's actually leading to deeper enslavement than it is to freedom at least the way the Bible talks about it.
Katie:Like, how often is the thing we're praying for actually in some ways at odds with our spiritual formation and true freedom in Christ? Yes, yeah.
Mac:Yeah, this plays into the last projection that we want to name, which is the passive enabler. This is somewhat similar to the previous one, but it's just this idea that God is super nice, super tolerant, never confronts the messed up stuff in our lives. You know what I mean. Sort of like grandparents who you only see every once in a while, and when you're over there they just dote on you and give you a bunch of sugar.
Mac:You know what I mean. Like this is what God is like. He's just that. He's just that doting grandparent who wants to make you happy and give you whatever you want.
Katie:Yeah.
Mac:You guys experienced this at all.
Katie:Well, I saw my grandparents multiple times a week and they still do that. So, yeah, I see this one. I mean, the Bible says do not judge right. We're preaching on that, you preached on that this past week and I'm preaching, but I think it kind of reminds me of that sign. Have you guys seen the sign? Like chocolate is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. That's what it reminds me of.
Katie:That's ridiculous, like this idea that I feel like whenever I go to Door County I see that sign Probably in Door County.
Mac:Door County sign. Yeah, when you drive up to Door County you're going to see one of two signs Signs like that, or all of these, like lion's den signs where it's like what is wrong with Wisconsin? Well, that's before you get to.
Katie:Door.
Josiah:County, Not in Door County. Let's be clear that's Fox Valley. Yeah, that's the Fox Valley Once you get to Door.
Katie:County it's just cherries and antique shops.
Mac:Right.
Katie:But it reminds me of, like the girl in the Willy Wonka you know Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory whose dad gives her whatever she wants and she ends like totally spoiled because of it. This idea that, yeah, god just showers us with gifts and just whatever makes us happy in the moment is what God wants for us.
Josiah:Yeah, I feel like this is the opposite end. If you were to swing the pendulum from, god is a distant deity who doesn't care. You swing it to the opposite side and you just have this very narrow-minded view that all God cares about is your personal comfort, and so I think it's helpful to note that for some people, like knowing that God is like a doting grandparent, can sound like good news in a moment right, because it can feel like, oh, god actually cares about what I'm going through and I haven't experienced that before, and that can be wonderful and beautiful it's just not.
Katie:it's not the full picture, Right.
Josiah:Right Because like there's a big difference between a parent and a grandparent.
Mac:Yep, so we're all doing theology. We've tried to name, you know, some of the common ways that we tend to project things onto God that we're going to in a few moments, say don't really match God Right. Project things onto God that we're going to in a few moments, say don't really match God right, yeah. So let's do that pivot, like how do we pivot away from these projections?
Josiah:Yeah, so we see how these distortions to the way we view God impact almost every aspect of our faith, and we need an anchor right. We need the right frame, and we believe that Jesus provides that for us. When we assess our view of who God is, we need to do so through Jesus. God is like Jesus, and so let's unpack that.
Katie:Yeah, I mean so one theme throughout this series that we're sharing our belief that Jesus had a set of convictions and beliefs that he carried with him and these beliefs shaped everything about him, including how he understood God, the Father. And if we look at Jesus, at what he did and what he said and what he taught, I would submit that Jesus understood himself to be the perfect revelation of God. So in John 14, 9, jesus tells Philip if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. In John 10, 30, he says I am the Father, father are one. So Jesus is telling us that he is God in the flesh. He perfectly reveals what God is life. So it would follow.
Katie:Then I would say that if we want an accurate picture of God, the best place to go would be to look at Jesus, like how did he treat people? How did he relate to his work? How did he relate to rest? How did he respond when people were treating him poorly? How did he relate to his work? How did he relate to rest? How did he respond when people were treating him poorly? How did he relate to those who looked down on him? And it's interesting because if you look at a lot of the ideas we just unpacked. I think it becomes clear that many of them don't line up with Jesus at all.
Mac:Yeah, so what we're saying is, if you're going to sort of move away from these projections, you need to anchor yourself to God. Is like Jesus and I heard you say something really important, katie. It strikes me as important that this was actually a mental model or a lens that Jesus wore with regard to himself. Jesus carried around the conviction that I'm revealing to you what God is like.
Katie:Yes, so if we're going to take him at his word, then we are to look at him and go oh, that's what God looks like.
Mac:If you see me, you see the father yeah.
Josiah:Yeah, and even, and even, a step like another, step beyond that is even that, like the, the gospel writers and the writers in the New Testament knew this. It seems like the writers of the New Testament really understood this deeply. In Matthew 1, jesus is named Emmanuel, which means God. With us we have John, chapter 1, which references Jesus as the word of God. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only son has made him known. Hebrews 1, Jesus is the radiance of the divine nature, the exact representation of his being. Colossians we have Jesus is the image of the invisible God. The fullness of deity dwells in him. So it's all over. Jesus is God Right.
Mac:Right and obviously this is a core conviction that is ironed out and affirmed, based on scripture and the life and teachings of Jesus by the early church and throughout church history this has been something that all Christians have agreed upon. But this conviction that God is like Jesus and Jesus reveals what God is like is something that you see throughout, like theological consensus throughout church history, and I could point you in the right direction if you wanted to see that developed, but I ended up just grabbing a bunch of quotes to indicate how prominent and repetitious this becomes, just so you can appreciate how important it is. So there's a guy named Gregory of Nyssa from the fourth century and he said that which was visible in our savior is the image of the invisible God. That which Jesus makes visible is the image of the invisible God. Jesus makes visible what is invisible about God, and I think that's really powerful. Michael Ramsey says God is Christ-like and in him is no un-Christ-likeness at all. So whatever you believe about God, if it isn't aligned with Jesus, you need to get rid of it, because there's no un-Christ-like streak in God's character. His character is perfectly revealed in Jesus.
Mac:Dallas Willard D Willie once said if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. Rowan Williams said the same thing. Richard Rohr said Jesus is the human face of God. Jesus is the human face of God. Jesus is God with skin on right. This guy named Herbert McCabe said if you do not believe in Jesus, then you do not believe in God, for God is just like Jesus. Frederick Buechner said in Jesus, god becomes as plain as day. Brian Zahn said God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There's never been a time when God was not like Jesus. We haven't always known this, but now we do. And then my friends Matt and Ben say this in their book Jesus is what God is like, full stop. I like that full stop period.
Mac:Now I want to take this one step further, right, because we're saying, okay, the New Testament makes it clear that God is like Jesus. Jesus reveals to us perfectly what God is like. These were the mental models, one of the mental models that Jesus had. So we've made a case for that. But it still sort of raises the question okay, but then what was Jesus like? You know what I mean?
Mac:I was once in a car with someone for the day. We were kind of attending to a family emergency, so we got a lot of time together and we had a great day. But she kept saying, well, my Jesus is like this and my Jesus is like that. And I just kept like going, huh, like yes, god wants a personal relationship, but you don't own Jesus. Like Jesus can define himself. You know what I mean. Like you don't get to determine what Jesus is like, jesus gets to determine what Jesus is like.
Mac:And so this just leads to the question like what kind of God does Jesus reveal? And I want to submit, just to kind of push the conversation forward, is that Jesus reveals a cruciform God, and that's a technical term, the word cruciform, it's a Latin word, c-r-u-x means cross, it's a two-part word and formus means shape, so it's a cross-shaped God. So I want to submit and I'm hoping we can talk about this a little bit that the God that Jesus reveals is a God whose character is cruciform love, other-centered, self-sacrificial, calvary-like love, a kind of love that's willing to go to the cross in order to redeem and rescue a sinful and broken humanity.
Katie:Yeah.
Mac:So it's not just my Jesus. Is this my Jesus is that, like Jesus, reveals a very specific kind of God. It's a God whose very character is cruciform love.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, and I see this play out in the scriptures as we read the gospels and we look at kind of the stories of Jesus and the stories of the early church. Philippians 2 says in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. And it goes on to say, rather, he made himself nothing, taking on the nature of a servant, and it goes on. So notice the phrase equality with God.
Katie:Like Jesus was equal to God, he was God, yet he didn't use that to his own advantage. So, even though Jesus was king, he made himself a servant. Even though he could and ultimately did defeat death, he first submitted to death right, and a type of death that was like the most humiliating kind. Even though he could have lived his life in a peaceful bubble, he put himself out there amongst the people and spent most of his time with people who were broken and hurting, and he loved them. So yeah, I agree, I think we have this. Jesus gives us the perfect picture of God, and it's a God who embodies cruciform love in every respect. And the way we take that from just a concept to something concrete is just by looking at how Jesus did and what he said and what those who knew him said about him.
Mac:Can I nerd out about that passage in Philippians 2 for a moment?
Katie:Yeah, please.
Mac:There was a scholar. There is a scholar named Michael Gorman who wrote a book called Inhabiting the Cruciform God, which is all about what you're talking about our understanding of Jesus and who Jesus reveals God to be, and what it looks like for us to inhabit a cruciformity in our own lives. He does a deep dive into that Philippians 2 passage which you just quoted, and points out that many times the translation of Philippians 2 is even though he was God, he humbled himself, even though. But Gorman and honestly with a growing group of New Testament commentators argues that a better translation would have been instead of even though, rather because, because he was in the form of God, he humbled himself. In other words, paul isn't so much contrasting divinity and humility Interesting. What he's doing is he's naming that true divinity expresses itself through humility and self-giving love. In other words, the passage redefines God in cruciform terms. The cross doesn't conceal God's nature. It actually reveals what God has always been like Self-sacrificial love. I think that's really cool.
Josiah:That's really cool. Yeah, it's like an expression of the character of God, not in contrast to it.
Mac:Yes, it's like, oh, god is so big and yet there is a sense in that. But it's actually revealing what God was already like before God even took on flesh in Jesus. And this again so many theologians have named this as like the pinnacle of God's self-revelation Jesus on the cross. So Clark Pinnock says God has revealed himself in Jesus not as coercive power but cruciform love. A guy named Brad Jersic says Jesus doesn't just reveal the character of God, he redefines it in cruciform love. Greg Boyd says the cross is the supreme revelation of the character of God. And then Juergen Moltmann says the crucified Jesus is the image of the invisible God, kind of a core. Once again, maybe not only is God like Jesus, but there seems to be a core theological consensus supported by the New Testament that like yeah, and it's cruciformity is at the heart of it. Love it, love it.
Mac:All right. So, having said all of that, love it All right. So, having said all of that, let's go back to these projections, shall we? Because I can imagine maybe you're sitting there going, okay, distant deity, sovereign, puppet master, so on. You cover all these and we've kind of hinted at why they might be problematic. But let's go through them again, like, let's pass through these again through the lens of Jesus, and go up see how these are actually inconsistent with the God revealed in Jesus, the God of cruciform love. Make sense.
Katie:Yeah, yeah. Well, the first one I named was the distant deity, the idea that God is just sort of removed and absent and uninterested in our lives. Absent and uninterested in our lives. And when we look at scripture we see that in fact Jesus draws near to people, to all people. He speaks over them, he listens to them, he even weeps with them, walks with them. John 1.14 says and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Like Jesus dwelt among people, he lived amongst them as a human. Matthew 28, 20 says and though I'm with you always, until the end of the world. So I just think we see in Jesus that God is near and present and feels the full weight of our suffering and our pain and all of that. Jesus is in no way distant.
Mac:Yeah, I mean, this is the center of the center of the gospel that, despite the brokenness of the world, god takes on flesh and moves towards us, doesn't remain distant or absent or aloof, but, as Eugene Peterson, takes on flesh and moves into the neighborhood. Yeah, you know, and you mentioned earlier, josiah, when we go through something really difficult, in those moments where we're most tempted to go God, where are you? Why am I going through this? Don't you care? Well, it's often as you go through it, especially when you look back on it. I know this is true in my own life. I didn't notice it at the time, but God was present and was caring and was near and was giving me things I didn't even know at the moment to support me through that season. Yeah, yeah, you experienced that too.
Josiah:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, in the moments you can't see it, but then when you look back, you can see all the ways that God was present. Yeah, it's crazy.
Mac:Yeah, then you have the sovereign puppet master right, this idea that, hey, god's sovereign, but his sovereignty equals control. And yet I'll just say scripture as a whole, if I were to give a definition of sovereignty. It's not so much about control. Instead, it's about God being over and above all things, that, no matter how what's happening in the world, god is still on the throne. That's kind of the through line of how scripture speaks about God's sovereignty.
Mac:But think about this no one would say that complete control is a good thing. If you said that, hey, katie, you're a really controlling parent. Or hey, josiah, as a worship leader I noticed you working with those volunteers, you're kind of a control freak no one would say that's a good thing. No one would say that is a good thing at all. We recognize it as a bad thing. So why do we say it about God?
Mac:And sure enough, if you look at Jesus, you don't see someone who's controlling everyone or everything around him. You just don't. It's actually the exact opposite. Jesus seems to honor the other people's agency and free will, even when they don't do what he wants them to do. He seems very comfortable allowing people to make their own choices and then responding in light of whatever they choose. So think about the rich young ruler hey, you got to sell everything you have and come follow me. That's what you're missing. And we're told he walks away. Sad Jesus doesn't try to control the rich young ruler's response. Once he's made that choice. He doesn't try to reason with him to get him to do something different. He resists that type of manipulation or control and we see this literally all throughout the gospels. It's how he interacts with Judas betraying him, or Peter denying him, or the religious leaders plotting against him. You don't see him controlling or manipulating everybody.
Mac:I just get cranked up about this one. Which is better? Let's talk about this for this one. Which is better? Let's talk about this for a moment. Which is better? A God who needs to control everything in order to be sovereign, or or a God who is still sovereign and can still accomplish his purposes, despite both human and angelic beings who have genuine free will Like to me? Yeah, you know, one is so much more obviously better and more loving than the other. You know what I mean, mm. Hmm, does that not shake anything loose for you?
Josiah:Oh, that is true.
Mac:One seems a lot more powerful, like you know, like a lot more potent right and this is why I think in in the scriptures you see this emphasis being placed on god's wisdom and not just his power. First of all, you see the this idea going back to cruciformity, that God's power is revealed in the cross, which is foolishness to the world. So that tells you enough to go the way we understand. Power needs to be reconfigured and recentered around the cross of Christ. But in addition, in that same text, in 1 Corinthians, it talks about how this was foolish to the world, but it was the very wisdom of God. So God's power and wisdom are often fused together to go. If we're gonna understand God's agency in the world, we can't just think about it as Neanderthal power where God just goes and gets what he wants. You know what I mean, like he doesn't just bop people over the head. It's this fusion of cross-like power with self-sacrificial wisdom, and that's how God accomplishes God's purposes in the world.
Katie:Yeah, and it makes sense to me why we grasp for this idea. In the moment, like in the moment when things aren't going well or you really want something to happen. In some ways it's more, it might feel more reassuring to go well, god will just kind of, like you said, pull a few lovers and make it happen. But over the long haul I think it just creates a lot more problems and raises a lot more questions and, as you're saying, really isn't consistent with the character that we see of God revealed in Jesus.
Mac:Yeah, and I don't see you as a controlling person.
Josiah:Katie or Josiah. I just want to make that clear. There have been times. I just want to make that clear. There have been times. Yeah, so God being like Jesus also gives us an antidote to this false frame that God is like a cosmic cop. Jesus reveals a God who moves towards us in our brokenness. Call back to the last episode. We already kind of spoke about it, but we talked all about how God is present and meets us in reality and if God is like Jesus, he's not withholding when we make mistakes.
Josiah:When we're broken or lost in sin. He moves towards us in love and he's not counting our sins against us. I think about the passage when Jesus washes the disciples' feet, and how much Jesus had to humble himself to do the job of a servant for one, but for two he also washed. He's washing Judas's feet, knowing that he's already done work to betray him. So the ultimate betrayal, ultimate sin, betraying Jesus, right the bad as it could get, jesus is washing his feet and serving him dinner, and so that shows me a picture of a God who's not a cop writing tickets and throwing you in jail or giving you the silent treatment and disappointed in you when you make mistakes, but a God who's present and moves towards you. Reveals a God that we don't have to hide from, one that seeks us out, especially when we mess up.
Mac:Yeah, that's such good news. I wanna continue to experience that in my life. Like the mistake is an opportunity to discover God's great mercy.
Josiah:every mistake and it's waiting for you there.
Mac:If we'll just return home with more frequency, you know.
Katie:Yeah, not in spite of it, but actually in the middle of it. Yeah.
Josiah:Yeah Well, and I also think about how the first formation stuff can be like a malformation. I also have experienced God's love through people in times when I've made mistakes. When you experience grace when you know you've messed up and you're beating yourself up and someone gives you grace and stays present to you, that's like it's healing. And I think maybe if you're having a hard time picturing God not as that cosmic cop and even seeing Jesus do it to other people in the gospels that like, oh, clearly he's for our good and that he's moving towards us, think about a time when you experienced grace and presence from someone in your life when they could have walked away Right, right we experienced the grace and love of Jesus through community in our brokenness.
Mac:Yeah yeah, and you guys, we stink at hiding. I mean that's. The other thing is like our hiding is futile. My youngest son, griffin, I mean, if you're listening to this you've probably heard before, but he has Down syndrome and one of the things he gets into occasionally is wanting to play hide and seek, but he absolutely sucks at it. He hides in the same spot and it's not even a hiding spot. He just kind of like initiates it and then goes into his room, sits in the middle of the floor but closes the door. But he thinks it's hilarious. Every time you open the door and go, found you, he starts like giggling and then we do it until it's really boring.
Katie:For him or for you?
Mac:Well, for me usually because it's just like he doesn't have an off switch. If he finds something funny, he'll ask you to do it over a thousand times. It's just so cute and exhausting. But that's kind of what it feels like when we try to hide from God. It's like, okay, here I am, sitting in the middle of the floor, you know what. I mean, Like you know exactly where I am. It's not-.
Katie:Right, right, your door's not even closed. Yeah, totally yeah, yeah, no, that's a good one, yeah, and the other one I named was the vending machine. God, there is something to affirm. I think that God gives us good things and, you know, of course, wants to see us live contentful and happy lives. I think there's lots of blessings that he gives us, but I think he calls us into something deeper than just the sense of entitlement, and that's surrender.
Katie:And this idea of surrendering to his love can look very different than whatever. My version is of a comfortable, happy life. Sometimes it might line up in certain ways, but sometimes my comfort is actually the worst thing for my spiritual formation. Instead, in the gospels we see Jesus call us to die to ourselves and to live in him, and there's a lot of discomfort that comes with that.
Josiah:Yeah, I'm remembering. If this doesn't make sense you can cut it out, adam, but I remember the first year I went with you to the silent retreat. The retreat director talked about the difference between pain that can lead to formation and pain that's like evil, pain when it's like inflicted as opposed to just normal life trouble. Discerning the difference is important to know if God needs to bring healing or if God is producing fruit. I don't know yeah. But we're not very good at discerning that in our no, we'd rather have no pain at all.
Katie:Thank you very much, yeah.
Mac:Yeah, but we don't grow that way, you know. And so there is. You need a community of spiritual discernment around you for those types of reasons, because oftentimes it's hard for us to wrap our mind around not just what's happening and how we might be contributing to it all the variables but also God's agency within it. And I just find, at least for me, I need a team of people around me, especially when it's difficult or complicated, to help me attend to that.
Mac:Well, the final one, just by way of correction the projection was the passive enabler, right, the sort of hey, god is just sort of giving you sugar and trying to make you happy, and obviously you're going to be hard-pressed to read the Gospels and hold on to this image of God. Yes, jesus is incredibly gracious and his grace is disruptive because he gives it to people who don't deserve it at all. Right, and so it cuts in that direction. But you'll also see, throughout the Gospels, particularly with those who hold authority and power and pride themselves with being religiously upstanding and righteous man, he often has some really tough mirror moments with them, motivated by love and not an absence of grace, but he constantly is also holding up a mirror of truth to go. This is where you are, this is what you're doing, this is the work you're doing and you need to reckon with that.
Josiah:You know what I mean.
Mac:And so you don't see in the life of Jesus just a passive enabler. You also see this confrontational side, but it's not done out of Jesus running out of patience or sort of being at his limit in terms of grace. It's a calibration of truth done out of a motivation of love.
Katie:Yeah.
Mac:And I would argue it's still cruciform. And here's why Because the confrontation that he has with the religious leaders doesn't give him points. It actually is what leads him to being crucified. So he confronts them out of love for them, and the cost to himself is that they're the ones who crucify him.
Josiah:Yeah, it's not coercive, for his sake, yes, totally.
Katie:It's interesting.
Mac:Totally so. Again, I mean, you could do this work. We could have picked other projections, other ways of viewing God that we walk around with in our brains that are inaccurate, and you could do the same work of going does this match Jesus? And begin to sort of unpack that and go oh, here's how Jesus corrects that or speaks into that. And this is lifelong work. This is lifelong work of continually going back to Jesus and having your understanding of who God is and how God relates to you, shaped by his life and teachings and his presence through the spirit.
Katie:Yeah, yeah.
Mac:All right, friends, it is praxis time. It is time to get into some practices. In light of this conversation, we want to give you some really concrete things you can do as you walk away from this episode to begin to live this out.
Katie:Yeah, we named this earlier in the episode, but this starts with getting aware and getting honest. So, as a first practice, I would just name examine your images of God, like as you sit here and listen to us. Which of these are there others? Which one do you relate to? Which ones do you see popping up in your life and how do you notice it playing out? Is it you know, if you, I do spiritual direction and my spiritual director will often say, as you, as you pray or as you sit with God in that, how do you picture him looking at you?
Katie:Like what's his expression? And I think that's a really good exercise to do. Like as you come before God with something that you know, you feel you messed up or failed or you feel shame about in some way. Like picture, ask yourself what's the image of God that I'm holding in my mind right now? How do I see him postured towards me? How do I see him looking at me? How do I see him relating to me? I see him pastored towards me. How do I see him looking at me? How do I see him relating to me? I think that's just a really good practice to start by, to start gaining some awareness around it.
Mac:Yeah, what kind of God are you presupposing in this moment? That's another. That's like I love that question you're giving our listeners, katie. What's the expression on his face right now? How do you assume God's relating to you? What is that belief you have assuming God is like? And these are little ways that you can start to wake up to the fact that you're doing theology, you are carrying around beliefs that are very much influencing you and how you're responding to God in your life. And Josiah you've named several times.
Mac:But I want to say part of this work and it can be very fruitful is to go back to your first formation, not because there's always just like a direct one-to-one correlation, but because there is some influence there. Oftentimes we need to wrestle with and uncover that impacts how we see God and relate to God in our lives. Like for me, dude, I grew up in a home that was very rule-based and high expectations on here's what we expect you to how to behave and how to do this and how to do that, and I'm grateful for that I had a clear sense of right and wrong and just like any kid it's not like I did that perfectly and I was afraid of consequences. You know, doing the wrong thing and getting in trouble for it, and that has shaped how I relate to my mistakes now and relate to God as a result. It's good for me to be aware of that, yeah for sure.
Mac:So practice one examine your images of God. Practice two is make Jesus your interpretive key. So whatever bubbles up for you again, get beyond the hey, here's the right answer. On the theology test, the right answer is whatever it is you're actually believing, you got to be honest about that. But then make Jesus your interpretive key. How does Jesus correct or speak to this belief or conviction I have about who God is or how he's relating to me? And one core practice you can do is just to always keep your thumb in one of the gospels. Make it a lifelong habit to consistently read through the gospels so you're constantly noticing and going deeper with how you understand Jesus. And this will also help you resist that urge to go oh, my Jesus, this my Jesus that when you read the gospels you're like no, jesus was like this let.
Josiah:Jesus define himself yeah, that's really good. Yeah, it's so important. Practice three really isn't a new one, it's just repeat steps one and two.
Mac:For the rest of your life.
Josiah:Exactly, yeah, we just need to normalize the process of have we use the word bad news in our discipleship curriculum, just to name that, if, if, if the gospel is good news and tells us who God is and who we are because of it and how things work, then our behavior, when it doesn't line up, is ultimately, it's ultimately connected to bad news or false beliefs, right, false theology, like bad theology in our lives. And so just normalize the process of identifying the bad news and going to God to replace it with good news and just repeat that for the rest of your life.
Katie:And don't be surprised when you find yourself there again having to do the same thing.
Mac:You mentioned something too, Josiah, that might be part of this practice of doing this in community. Like I know, I need people who can embody the grace of God when I make mistakes. I also need people who can go Mac, that sounds like some bad news. You're believing you know what I mean and then I can kind of go. You're right, I need to unpack that understanding of what God is doing in this moment. So we need people around us to help us stay focused on Jesus, to notice a name when we're pivoting out of bad news and to be embodiments of good news.
Josiah:Yeah, I can't imagine how much I wouldn't attend to if I didn't have people in my life who would say, hey, what's going on with that? Or like just normalizing the process of just checking in with the close people in your life, like, hey, how are you doing? Like, hey, how's this situation going? Like, if I didn't have people doing that, I might not ever attend anything.
Mac:Well, thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Next time we're going to look at another core conviction when it comes to multiplying disciples who live on mission in the world. It's going to build on this one, but it's this conviction that God's kingdom looks like Jesus's ministry.
Josiah:Praxis is recorded and produced at Crosspoint Community Church. You can find out more about the show and our church at crosspointwicom. If you have any questions, comments or have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to send us an email. Also, if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review and if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts.
