James Bryan Smith - Falling in Love with the God Jesus Reveals

thank you well it is so fun to be here I love this event it's too you know Greg Boyd was here last year he said something on the last day that I loved he said I love the aroma of this tribe and I thought yeah that's what you you guys smell good you know in a oh did Jesus kind of way just kind of a the aroma of Christ is here and together William Paul Young the aroma of Christ is really here wonderful and I do I'm glad Paul you made it Casey and Rachelle and Natasha for agreeing to speak this this weekend fantastic group of people and it's crazy but you know this thing is the 10th anniversary of this book and that crazy kind of mean feeling old but it's exciting to see that well tonight I I want to talk a little bit and then I'm going to invite Paul up and we're gonna dialogue some hopefully I'll say something inflammatory and invite his reaction but anyway you know so I want to talk about the theme of this conference tonight which is which is the good and beautiful God right and and that's why we invited the speakers here because here's one of my basic things that I've really learned particularly in the last 10 years with this book is our views of God directly relate to our views of ourselves and who we are and so we'll be you know talking about that and so I want to talk about this idea of of who God is and who we are so let's see if I can advance this guy maybe I can go go go I don't want to see myself anymore well Ben can help me or something technology it's so great and then it's not there we go so this is a quote in in the book aw Tozier I love quotes that are hyperbole you know like the greatest the most important but he says the most important thing about a person is what comes into our mind when we think about God that's that's a big statement the most important thing about a person is what comes into your mind when you think well tell me about God what do you think about God I've come to believe that this big statement is true that Tozier is absolutely right because as we think about God that's going to influence everything we think about ourselves about one another about life about death everything falls into that category so when I was writing what became this book I feel tested for four years with people some folks are even here today in the original focus group that we did and when I started I have to be honest I didn't really factor this book did came last which is kind of interesting because I was working on the gospel of the kingdom and spiritual disciplines and and it was when I went back to read Dallas Willard's ninth chapter of divine conspiracy chapter 9 a curriculum for Christlikeness a chapter that changed my life and I said well I wish you would write that Dallas and he said well why don't you Jim and then it took me 10 years but in that in that time I began thinking about what would it be but it was upon the 8th reading of that chapter I know it was the eighth time because I use a different color highlighter every time I read the chapter and so I went this is my eighth time but I came across this line where Dallas says this is in Chapter nine if you're gonna create a curriculum for Christlikeness the first thing you must do to lead them to the good and beautiful is to lead them to the good beautiful God that Jesus knew and I read that line and it you know sometimes they know a line in a book that jumps off the page and it jumped off the page and I went the first thing you must do so I picked up the phone I called Dallas I read him this line from his book and I said is this true which is a really stupid thing to say Dallas you said this is that right knee goes well James yes I wrote that and and I think it's right anyway but that then so I went back and and rebuilt the whole curriculum with that idea and flat-out stole that the phrase good and beautiful God because what I began to understand is that you can't understand this life of formation and what your what it really is unless you have your God views right in fact if your God views are wrong practices in spiritual formation can become toxic like you can get worse you know because if you think God's mad at you you'll just fast and pray till he isn't but so so when I went back and reworked it I began to see how crucial it is what our God narratives are and that changed everything the other thing that was fundamental to me in particularly over the last decade is the question what's our gospel like how do we frame the Gospel message and what I have come to see very clearly in the last 10 years since I first wrote the book is that the dominant gospel in American Western Christianity particularly evangelical Christianity is what can be called the public the Penal substitutionary atonement Theory PSA will just call it tat not public service announcement but the PSA version of the gospel isn't entirely wrong there's truth in it but when it is the sole focus you end up telling the wrong story and your view of God begins to be skewed because of that because the way that it's framed and maybe you heard this it's sort of it's so so much a part of our world we breathe it and without even knowing it but it basically goes like this you're awful like you're you're horrible and you should burn in hell forever like that would be just but God let Jesus take your place there's the substitute part and and atoned for that so that you can go to heaven when you die if you confess him as Lord and get sprinkled or dunked or if you're a Quaker dry cleaned whatever it is your denomination does but you do something and then you can you know you wait to die and so the PSA gospel what if you think about it what happens is you've got a God behind Jesus and that God still mad like he's still angry he's been placated maybe by the atoning work but that's what you still have and so I didn't realize that that was what I took in myself my own theology was very influenced by that because it is so pervasive so I had to relook at the gospel and then I also had to to get a new understanding of what is known as projection so I want to talk about projection Ludwig Feuerbach who was a critic of Christianity said Christians just project onto God human views and he was absolutely right because we do that Brandon Manning always liked this little joke God made man in His image and then man returned the favor because we tend to do that we we sort of we reason from human perspective and then we just throw that right back onto God and so Brian's aunt who was here two years ago on this stage he's written a lovely book called sinners in the hands of a loving God but but in in that book what Brian does is he shows how the the sermon by Jonathan Edwards sinners in the hands of an angry god which which Zhaan calls the most influential sermon in American history that's a big statement but I think he's right that that particular way of approaching our faith first of all starts with you like right how what look at the title of the sermon sinners it starts with you as a sinner in the hands of an angry god sinners in the hands of an angry god and and here's here's why I think that the PSA version is so pervasive and popular it's a very good sales pitch I mean if you've got five minutes to get somebody to make a commitment the PSA version works right it's a great pitch you start with this problem you're horrible you're gonna burn no one wants that here's a solution do this and then you're in and so it's quick it works it's clean and I think that's why it's so so dominant but let's start over okay I don't want to just deconstruct I want to reconstruct as well in what I say tonight so let's let's start over let's go back to to Psalm 139 that was read earlier a beautiful passage for it was you who formed my inward parts you knit me together in my mother's womb I praise you from fearfully and wonderfully made so right from the very beginning here the psalmist is saying the person that you are the person that all of us are is miraculous we came to be from nothing and and then God chose to make us exist and then were formed there's that word in formation were formed and shaped fearfully and wonderfully and we come into this world and Adrian Van calm who's a Catholic theologian I really like von comms work he says here's how you should understand yourself as the human person you are a divinely formed mystery I really liked at a divinely formed mystery formed by the divine forming mystery that would be God now that's a very different way to start this whole thing than then sinner and so forth and burnt just to say Who am I well first of all you're a divinely formed mystery and I love how mathematicians do things but they've discerned the odds of you being born it's 400 trillion to 1 the odds of you being here tonight in the form that's you 400 trillion to one crazy odds right the lotteries a lot you got a better shot at winning the lottery than that 400 trillions I mean you just think about how it happened that you're here first of all who knew on that night mom and dad would get frisky and I'm sorry for that image but I yeah it's just the truth or day I don't know when they got frisky you know that happened and then you were a swimmer then you were swimming to the egg and there's a couple million others in the race with you and you got there and you did it people say yeah I'm not very athletic and I'm not very fast and I say you were once one time you rocked okay huge you went after it and then you ourselves and you multiplied in a zygote I don't know why I said that but your your least and then you here you are and now you're 10 trillion cells and more cells in your gut but if you're this amazing being right this this mystery that comes but then as you come into the world you're gonna have to figure out like Who I am and who is God and we we may be come in as a blank slate in some ways but very quickly we realize we've come into a world that's going to shape us so I have this in this picture here that's my family so that's me on my mom is me and that's my mom Wanda my dad Calvin my brother Mike on the right my sister Vicki on the Left who's here Vicki where are you Vicki there we should say something oh yeah I knew I just give her a shot that was gonna be it but she could go anyway so so when you look at this picture you can you can you know infer a lot right that about my world that I came into that I'm where white people I'm a dude y-chromosome came got the overalls on rockin them I'm third so that's when you know the third child when parents quit parenting so a lot and my dad has it's high you know so we we were middle class so all of that stuff and my my my dad and mom were went to church some so I had some of that so Oliver Wendell Holmes put it this way we're all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe the record may seem superficial but it is indelible so and you're you know your story all of us are stories and and as we we understand that it's it's very healthy to recognize that that we right from the cradle we start picking up views of God and views of ourselves and and it's a big part of our formation to recognize all of those things so from that little family I grew up and here's another picture because I feel narcissistic tonight so here's a picture of me so that's me in high school playing basketball I was actually a really good athlete in in high school and played many sports basketball was a big sport for me pretty sure I made that shot because it's pretty close but but anyway so I was an all-conference player and one particular weekend in fact the this this is from that weekend because we played golden I grew up in Denver so we're playing golden that's where they make Coors beer for beer people anyway so I scored 26 points that night Green Mountain we played the next night scored 25 so I had 51 points in the weekend I led the conference in scoring and that's kind of a big deal but I Alex I happened to miss four free throws in the gate in the second game against Green Mountain I was 1 for 5 from the free-throw line why is that important well so I get home that night Saturday night big weekend pretty happy we won that game and I come in and my dad's sitting on the couch and he looks real serious and he says to me you missed four free-throws I said yeah yeah yeah I did it's kind of a bummer but hey we won you know blah blah and he says hey do you know why you missed those four free-throws I I don't know he said your feet were wrong now that was pretty much the exchange I went on I went to bed now what I heard my dad saying was you're not good enough what I heard was I'm disappointed that's what came through to me that's how I interpreted those particular words and so what I had to discover later is that in many ways back to Feuerbach and projection in many ways I had with the PSA gospel in mind I'd projected on to God that God was to use Dallas's great phrase a giant unblinking cosmic stair you know that God's just watching you just like my dad was watching me miss those free throws God is watching everything I mean he's watching it my bad thoughts my bad this my bad that so you just transfer that on right so that's what how I understood God is as a Christian in the early days and that and that stuck with me but then some years later I became friends with Brennan Manning some of you know Brennan and so Brennan and I we're having coffee and dessert at a lovely restaurant nearby here called la galette I recommend go to la galette out-of-towners it's a fantastic little spot not far from here but we're having coffee and Brennan in the way only Brennan can do it just says do you believe God loves you as you are you never heard Brennan that's about that's not a bad impression and I went well yeah I mean it's John 3:16 for God so no Jim do you believe God loves you as you are and I went and before I could finish he just goes you don't believe God loves you as you are and that was the first time anybody really spoke that directly to me and I realized you see and I would later understand this theologically from the Torrence brothers James and Thomas Torrance and the great phrase that that I had a God in back of Jesus you know that there was God the Father and he's back here mad he's watching you miss your free throws or whatever right and then you got Jesus going okay dad don't don't don't don't hit him or don't hurt him or whatever right a God in back of Jesus and what it took me a long time to discover was I had a trinity deficit disorder I just didn't understand the person's of the Trinity and how they functioned and and so it would be some years later that I would begin to redeem some of that and a couple of things happen to me that were very redemptive and and one of them was when I was with my spiritual director a wonderful guy and and we were talking through and I told him this story about the free-throws I told him the free-throws story and that you know he's like well what did you wish your father would have said I said well I would have loved it if he'd said that I was awesome and it would have been great if he said I'm proud of you and he said did you really hear him though I said well yeah I just told you the story I heard him he said did you know I even didn't he said he asked you why you missed I said yeah he did he said but then he said what he said your feet were wrong my spiritual director said he was watching your feet that's how he loved you when my dad was 75 he lived with us the last couple years of his life and I said why were you so hard and he said because I thought you were special and I wanted to do everything I could for you I mean how often is it that parents we try hard right but what we say and what the child hears maybe you know that was very profound that moment I wept when he pointed that out and I just thought about my father in those stands watching my feet it's not what I heard it's what he was doing and then my sister Vicki who's here who is our our family scribe and photographer sent me this picture and this is a picture of my mom and Vicki sent this to me I don't know was it a birthday Vic I don't know way he sent this picture but as so one day after prayer I just I walked by and I stopped and I looked and look in her face you see that just joy on her face and that's how she was you see but I didn't project that onto God I projected why did you miss I didn't project that this idea of being the apple of God's eye and that's why it was really healing for me and helpful when I read the shack because what what Paul was able to do very courageously was to reimagine the Trinity in a way that I hadn't allowed myself to do and that was it to maybe think for a second what if God the Father hang on is a large black woman and like now that get wait wait a minute so when I when I read the shack it really helped it helped me with that Trinity deficit disorder it helped me redeem that and then of course the movie very powerful very profound but that idea of God in the in the back of Jesus you know there's one scene in the movie really struck me and I want us to look at a clip from that because it it really reveals this now if you spoiler alert so in the shack the main character Mac has had a tragedy and he's mad at God and he gets he gets a couple days with the Trinity which is awesome but he gets too short of be angry he gets to take his views of God he gets to have them reworked and in this particular scene he's gonna he's gonna let God the father whose name Papa who's a black woman hear it out and so let's just watch this and and hear the response here the way that this works press and fold back rotate all that roots to it I know a great gulf areas between snack you may not believe it I am especially fond of you mm-hmm I want to heal therefore movements thrown inside and between us there's no easy answer they'll take your pain away no instant fix that's enduring life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship you're the old mighty God right you know everything you know everywhere all at once you have limitless bow it's a man you let my little girl die but she needed you most you ambassador I never left if you are who you say you are where were you when I needed you when all you see is your pain you lose sight of me stop talking how can you say that you will help me my youth couldn't help her because of you she's gone [Music] if you can change that I'll never be free the truth says everyone freaks and the truth has a name he's over in his woodshed right now covered in sawdust true story you left him - seems like you have a bad habit turning your back on those you supposedly love I'm not who you think I am he said it himself my God my God why has thou forsaken me [Music] you misunderstand the mystery [Music] no never think that what my son chose to do didn't cost us both dearly love always leaves a mark we were there together I never left [Applause] [Music] though there's that line you misunderstand the mystery and that's what's so easy to do in our world where the gospel turns us one direction we've got a God in back in Jesus where we tend to project onto God things and we can't see it and then the book in the movie were very powerful for me very profound and when I had Paul on the podcast we were talking about this and Paul talked about an icon that was painted and given to him by an artist Valery geodon and it's the Rublev Trinity but it's with the characters of the shack and she was gracious to give me a that as well and and I just it's really been healing for me to sort of think about that write this have God at the center as an african-american woman and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman and as we talked about that and Paul explained why biblically you can do this all right because we say God's a rock he's not a rock God's a strong tower it's not a strong tower God's a man he's not a man you know but but when we can begin to see other dimensions of who God is it's so healing it's so profound and I thought it was interesting that Paul said that he got a lot of pushback from people who said why did you make Jesus a middle-eastern man sadi was from England because all the Bible movies they talk British anyway but the the line in the scene that's easy to miss is when and and Papa says it several times it said it in that scene to Mack I'm especially fond of you and what Paul pointed out about I just told Paula how much I love that line and I have that on my wall above this version of the Trinity so that when I see the Trinity that's what I hear from them and and Paul said this was great he said you know when we say God loves you and we say it right God is the subject but when you say this when I'm especially fond of you you're the subject that's why it's oh it's so profound and so powerful because it shifts that the other thing that I loved in the in the book and the movie is the scene where when Mack finally gets to the point where he's like okay I'll be more religious you know I'll serve you and Jesus the carrot that Jesus character says to Mack I don't want servants I want friends what a great line what a shifting of the way that we think of when we think about Jesus and of course that comes from John 15:15 when Jesus says that I no longer call you servants I call you friends which I have to educate our students here who come to friends university and they say that's weird why do you guys call it that are you friendly yes that's why and Phoebe and Joey and Chandler go here but but it where the Quakers love that the the term Society of friends and if you said to the early Quakers who are you they said we're friends of Jesus can't beat that and what a shift it is to think that the Trinity sang I'm especially fond of you and Jesus saying I don't need you to serve me I just want let's be friends those those big shifts happen right and so ultimately you get back to where we were and that's what I love about that scene when Papa shows the scars shows those scars there's no God in back of Jesus God the Father was there on the cross the Trinity was unified never different and so it takes people like Brennan or Paul's book or moments or the Torrance brothers theologians but for me also a big shift for me and you know if you've used the good metaphor God was when I read George Herbert's poem loved three george george herbert fascinating guy to study in general but I was reading about Simone vay and she became a Christian she was in a Jewish atheist and she became a Christian when she read Herbert's poem I said I need to read this poem and so I did I went over to the library and I read the poem and I just sat in the library and wept at the beauty of this poem and I want to just look briefly at parts of it it's a short poem but it's the same thing going on that we're talking about so in this little poem by the way Herbert wrote all these poems and never showed anybody and as he was dying he said to his best friend I've written some poems if you think there'd be abuse do with do with them what you will very British we're saying it thank God his friend gave him to us but love bade me welcome yet my soul drew back love is God so God says to the soul you're welcome but the soul says no not me I'm guilty of dust and sin but quick I'd love observing me grow slack think about that Herbert's view of God how about that for description what's God like quick I'd love quick I'd love see that's more of my father in the stands watching my feet he's watching right but in love watch me gross observed me gross lack for my first entrance in drew nearer to me sweetly questioning see most people when they think God's gonna talk to him he's gonna have this voice and be mad but Herbert's saying God says no sweetly questioning what do you lack anything and the soil responds a guest I answered where did it be here I can't be it's like Isaiah in the temple I'm one word did it be in your presence and God who is love God says you shall be he you're you're who that person is you're you're worthy who me the unkind be ungrateful my dear I can't look on you and then God says back love took my hand and smiling did reply what an image love took my hand and smiling can you picture God smiling love took my hand and smiling did reply who made those eyes but I truth Lord but I've marred them yeah you made my eyes but I've made a mess of my life let my shame that's what the soul feels let my shame go where it does deserve and no you not says love who bored the blame okay yeah you feel shame but you know who bored the blame which is a reference to the cross right and then once again just like Mack saying to Jesus alright I'll get more religious my dear then I will serve all right you got me checkmate God you've said all these things and now you've told me I bore the blame okay okay I'll serve and what's the last line of the poem you must sit down says love and taste my meat God saying no I didn't sit down I don't want you to serve just be in me let's be together so I did sit and eat there's the surrender of the soul see that's what happens in that scene they're making bread Papa and Mac are making bread God wants to have a feast and it's such a different view of the nature of God think about that and so we have to step back and ask the question what is God like what's our guy who is God who are we in God's eyes here's the answers God's love first John 4:8 God doesn't love and then not love he loves me he loves me not know God is love or how about this one another line from the divine conspiracy that jumped off the page God's the most joyous being in the universe live with that one for about ten years God is the most joyous being in the universe that's why I love the scene in the shack when the Trinity is dancing you know that scene is such a great scene the Trinity is dancing together Father Son and Holy Spirit laughing and they're just it's fantastic you know and that's the image we want to move into that way of understanding it what's our gospel you're awful you can go to heaven you diet now our gospel is God in Christ reconciling the world to himself but notice the shift not reconciling God to the world that's how we think of the substitutionary Thoma gospel is if I know dad you really mad at them so I'm gonna reconcile you to them no it's reconciling the world to God that's why when you see when Papa holds those hands out you go that's what God's doing God's redeeming our view of God so that we can see this love and reconciliation and then our gospel includes that we live in a kingdom that cannot be shaken it's the gospel of the kingdom here now a reality that's present for us and if we can begin to see this it shapes everything and that's why the to power narratives that we talk about so often in The Apprentice Institute is say it with me folks who are you I am one in whom Christ dwells and delights there it is and I live in the strong and unshakable kingdom of God do you hear that a God who's saying I'm especially fond of you I'm delighting in you and you this is where you live you live in this strong and unshakable Kingdom one of the things Dallas said to me one of the last conversation that we had he said I love this line he said the success or failure of my own formation in Christ's likeness can be measured by how irritable I am classic Dallas humor such as so this little dry thing you know well James the successor and but you know what it's true my friend Bob Casper's here we were talking about it and Bob said yeah we just have to always watch that irritability index I said Bob I'm stealing that I like that that's a good thing right let's I mean the irritability index just today I went to subway to get some sandwiches and I was midway through and this dude left me my sandwich artist that's what they call themselves they're artists he just left I'm like I just and I went oh I'm getting irritable let's just remember where where I live and the strong and a shakable kingdom of God right because that's when that's it is true it's where it's how we can sort of say am i living deep into that kingdom into that reality am i living with this most joyous being in the universe who everyday is looking at me saying I'm especially fond of you changes everything a lot of people say so what do you what do you teach Jim Christian spiritual formation I don't know what that is what is that here's the best I got Christian spiritual formation is learning how to love as God loves that's it learning to love God myself and others when it comes down to it that's really it but here's the point of what I'm saying tonight our views of God as toes your said are the most important thing because they're gonna it's going to come down if we've if we've got this angry God we're gonna make some angry Christians and unfortunately we have a lot of them not doing that well right today but if we understand if we can re work all those narratives into the way that God that Jesus reveals who God to be if we can do that we can begin to love and live as God loves and transform the world that's the agenda and that's what I wanted to share tonight thank you very much Paul I invite you to come on up you

Channel: Apprentice Institute at Friends University

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Length: 37min 51sec (2271 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 06 2019