Jud Wilhite - The God of Yes: How Faith Makes All Things New

The contrast of flying into Las Vegas on Friday afternoon and flying out on Sunday night is remarkable. Since Vegas is my home, Ive made both trips many times and the disparity still amazes me. Most flights coming in for the weekend bring a plane full of rowdy, excited people eager to blow off steam. Theyre headed to Vegas to party, relax, gamble, shop, take in the shows, and celebrate like theres no tomorrow.

These Friday flights are always sold out and packed tighter than an overhead bin crammed with designer luggage. The people chat and mingle as if the cocktail party has already started. Sometimes you hear decks of cards being shuffled. Everybody asks where everybody is going to stay, what shows they will see, how many times theyve been before, and their favorite restaurants and casinos.

If they ask and find out I live in Vegas, they get intrigued. Usually my Im a pastor of a church kills conversation on flights, but oddly for those flying into Vegas, the fact that Im a pastor of a church with campuses in Vegas surprises them. I usually hear things like, Now, theres an oxymorona Las Vegas pastor! followed by lots of questions: Whats it like? Are there many churches in Vegas? How many celebrities have you met? Whats the craziest thing thats ever happened at your church? Do you get poker chips in your offering? After a while they usually conclude by saying, There must be a lot of people in Vegas who need what you do, and then its on to other things.

The flights leaving Vegas on Sunday night are just as packed as the ones coming in, but theyre as quiet as a cemetery. I always know I can get lots of work done flying out on Sunday night. Most people wont even make eye contact with you, at least those who arent wearing sunglasses. Many are wearing baseball caps or hats and are asleep before the plane doors shut. The laughter and inquisitiveness are gone, and there arent many conversations with strangers flying out of Sin City on a Sunday night, although I have supplied Advil to a number of people.

Living in one of the pleasure capitals of the world, I get a front row seat to many of the ways we try to fill our lives through entertainment. Vegas is wired up to max out pleasures at any moment. The lights are on 24/7 with nonstop shows, gaming, shopping, and food prepared by world-renowned chefs. Celebrities are always commemorating birthdays and corporate milestones as people roll in ready to spend money and enjoy themselves in ways that they would never do at home and are impossible to sustain.

Live here awhile and you learn that if someone stays long enough, plays long enough, and parties long enough, they always bottom out. Many times they turn to God for help and walk into our church. Over twenty years as a believer has taught me that often what were looking for in the pursuit of pleasure is really something only God can provide.

Unfortunately, we tend to get the impression that God is mainly about saying no to things in life. Maybe we picked this up from church or someones teaching we heard along the way. Or we see Christians who are constantly harping on other people to get it together, judging them for not living a more Christian lifestyle.

Perhaps we had an encounter with someone yelling at people with a bullhorn on the sidewalk or holding a sign up about Gods judgment. It could be for reasons we just dont understand, we feel guilty for enjoying things in life. Weve let second parties shape our view of God more than the Bible and our firsthand experience of a relationship with Him.

If we only base our understanding of God on secondhand sound bites from others, we can be left with a general sense that God is anti-everything. Hes anti-music, anti-movies, anti-dancing, anti-sex, anti-laughter, anti-fun, anti-Democrat or anti-Republican (depending on where you live), and the list goes on. Hes pretty much anti-life!

But something is desperately wrong when our impression of God is mainly about things He is against, real or imagined, and not about what He is for! And please dont get me wrong: God is against plenty of sinful behaviors that we see expressed in the Bible, but He is for many more healthy ways of living, including real pleasure. Most certainly, He is for people to know Him and experience all of lifenot as guilt but as gift.

I realize living out of this view of God can take time. Long after I said yes to God in my life, I still doubted whether He said yes to me. I felt Id never be good enough, never measure up, and never ultimately please Him. When you arent convinced someone likes you, it makes it challenging to trust them with every aspect of your life. I feared God was the God of No. After all, dont the Ten Commandments say again and again, Thou shalt not? Isnt God mainly trying to get our attention to stop doing bad stuff? Doesnt God want to end the party and turn the music down?

There were a lot of negative consequences for the way this belief shaped my life. I saw my relationship with God in more negative than positive terms. My faith was boiled down to what I felt I was not doing. Consequently, I looked for joy in places other than God. Turning to hobbies, entertainment, books, and learning, all of which are good things, I sought a level of satisfaction from them that they could not ultimately sustain.

Similarly, I turned to pleasing people and seeking their approval, whether it was through a work project or a family achievement. And there was this nagging sense that I just wasnt cutting it. God was there and He put up with me, but deep down I still felt like He said no to me. So I compartmentalized my faith and my life. I loved God, but I also held back a lot of my heart. And it never occurred to me to look to Him as the ultimate source of joy in my life.

Can you relate? What has your experience with God been like up to now? I mean, does your faith ever feel less like a new lease on living and more like an old leash? As a believer, do you still feel like deep down God says no to you more than yes? Are you focused more on what to avoid rather than what to embrace? If something feels good, do you secretly sense it must be wrong? Have you reduced faith down to duty and responsibility more than joy and love?

The result of not fully understanding Gods yes is a subtle drift in our heart from the One that we love. We starve ourselves from many of Gods good gifts for a while, then engage in a binging and purging cycle with everything from food to shopping to church involvement, pursuits that are anything but healthy in their extremes. We keep trying to find lasting satisfaction in a relationship or an accomplishment or another dose of praise for the need for approval.

Just as visitors to Vegas soon discover that overstimulated pleasure doesnt satisfy them for long, we get frustrated with our attempts to find lasting satisfaction and grow weary. We begin to lose the ability to enjoy simple things, to laugh, to rest in Gods love and be content with His provision. Maybe we even become one of those grumpy, angry, negative Christians we thought wed never become, judging others so we can feel better about ourselves.