The Simplicity of Jesus
We have three young kids all under 8 years old. Another one on the way as well. Life at home with 5 people and 5 different sets of expectations, wants and desires is not exactly simple sometimes…okay, most of the time. Maybe you can relate.
My son is a determined individual. He knows what he wants and will do everything he can to get it–he is our first born after all. He sees me making a protein shake for lunch and he instantly wants one too. Our middle daughter wants to keep up with him so she says that she wants one too. And the youngest one wants to do everything her brother and sister are doing–for better or for worse. So, what began with simply making a shake had become needing to divide it into three cups and making sure everyone gets the same amount and in the correct cups. The simple had become three times more complicated. My self-focused desires were inconvenienced by three other sets of desires. What was simple had become stressfully complex.
Do you ever feel like life is way more complicated than it needs to be? I am convinced that a lack of simplicity is a result of the fall of man. Think about it. In the beginning when Adam and Eve enjoyed blissful connection with God and each other, they had no knowledge of what was good or evil. Things just were and they were all good because God created everything that way. There was one simple rule: you must not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was a fitting name for the tree because eating the fruit produced knowledge of a whole different moral category–sin. The simple (and pure) had become abundantly complicated (and corrupted).
Satan works by making the simple goodness of God’s design and intention for us look increasingly complicated and confusing. Confusion and complication are Satan’s standard operating procedures. He routinely seeks to make life confusing and complicated for us. As a result of Adam and Eve’s sin, we all now have corrupted and confused hearts that are naturally bent toward desiring the wrong things. This ismadness, but it seems like the most desirable option when we do not believe Jesus.
What can we do to fix this? Believe. That’s Jesus’ answer to the confusion and complication. Consider Jesus’ words in John 14:1:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
And later in John 14:10-11:
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
Jesus’ disciples were stressed and worried because Jesus had been talking about leaving them and going to a place they could not follow, at least not for now. Jesus’ response to their worry about things they could not control nor understand was to simply believe in Him and His Father. Jesus and His Father were so close and in-step with each other that they were one. Jesus in the Father and the Father in Jesus is the picture of how the first two people of the Trinity relate and function. They are one God, existing eternally as two persons (the Holy Spirit being the third equally divine person).
Why does belief in Jesus create clarity from confusion and simplicity from complexity? Because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6). There is only one true way to live, according to Jesus. That way is found in Jesus himself.
One of the most breathtaking realities of the Gospel is that the answer to all the confusion and complexity of the world is not to get rid of all the things that cause confusion and complexity. If it were, God could certainly do that in an instant (and one day He will). Instead, in the midst of the confusing and complex life we live on this earth, Jesus offers us Himself. God’s answer to the confusion and complexity of sin is not a list of rules. After all, Adam and Eve already messed up with just one rule. God’s answer is a Person–Jesus Christ. This is the only answer, which further simplifies things. It’s not as if God gave Jesus as a way to find true life. Instead, God came in Jesus as the way to true life. God decided to make this simple for us and I’m glad He did.
In our complexity and confusion in this life, we can find true rest in the One who is our way, truth, and life.
And make a great protein shake while we’re at it!
