Life Coaches
Have you ever heard of a life coach? It’s a person who coaches another in various areas of life – from money management to business help, from scheduling to relationships and everything in between. In recent years this has become a pretty big industry – a billion dollar a year industry[1], in fact. This profession owes its existence in part to professional coaching in sports – hence the term “coach” – as athletes began looking to overcome personal problems that affected their own performance on the field. It also emerged through financial consulting, since many people had other difficulties in life that affected their spending.[2] So how helpful is life coaching? According to lifecoach.com, training alone can increase a person’s productivity by about 22%, but that training combined with weekly life coach sessions boosts productivity by 88%[3] – a huge increase!
Now you might think that the term “life coach” is just a name slapped onto something that has been going on for millennia. If so, then I think you’re right. People have been in mentoring relationships for countless generations, getting advice in all sorts of areas of life. Sure, those mentors hadn’t been certified by the Institute for Life Coach Training for completing programs approved by the International Coach Federation to become official graduates of an Accredited Coach Training Program, but I’m sure they still had at least a few good things to say.
And as effective as life coaching is, my suggestion to my fellow Redlanders is that you first seek out non-accredited coaches right here within our church family. We fellow Christ-followers have the wonderful duty to help mentor each other and train each other toward godliness. It’s not just an opportunity to avoid the $100-$300 per session; it’s a chance to hear solid advice that goes along with godly principles. There are people in our church family who would love to offer advice on financial stewardship, life management, resume creation, or specific skills. This is part of what it means to be the body of Christ.
That’s no accident, either, because any life coaching we can offer each other comes from the greatest life coach ever to walk this earth. Jesus Christ made some very “life-coachy” claims, like when he said in John 10:10 that he came in order for us to have life, and to have that life more abundantly. His stated goal was to first give us life and to make it the most fruitful. Pastor Mark mentioned one of the ways to enjoy this sort of fruitful life last week with Jesus’ command to abide in him. Being with Jesus – intentionally devoting our lives to his presence – is crucial to a fruitful life that pleases God.
Imagine how Jesus’ disciples felt, then, when they discovered their life coach was leaving them. Turn in your Bibles to John 14. If there was one thing the disciples had learned in their three years of training, it was that they needed Jesus and were lost without him. Two thousand years later, that fact hasn’t changed. We are lost without Jesus, because Jesus is still the source for life. As we have investigated some of Jesus’ “I am” statements in our Advent series, “What Child is this?” we come to one that is perhaps the most well-known – and nowadays even infamous – of them all. Let’s read John 14:1-6:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
This passage picks up a little before our passage from last week. Jesus and the disciples were still in the Upper Room. The meal had been eaten, their feet were all clean, Judas had left them, but the mood was emotionally heavy.
Jesus provides us with peace through trust
Jesus had predicted his own betrayal, and he had told them he was going somewhere the disciples couldn’t follow. Then Peter told Jesus he wanted to follow, even if it meant dying for Jesus, but he was told he would instead deny Jesus three times before morning. Why were the disciples’ hearts troubled? They were facing grief and uncertainty, with the vague hint that big changes were coming. This is when Jesus tells them plainly to not let their hearts be troubled. It’s a message for us, too. Jesus provides us with peace through trust.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Did you notice that’s a command? When we talk about our emotions, we describe them as fixed facts. I’m happy. I’m frustrated. I’m overjoyed. We use the same language that we would for any of our attributes. I’m 5 feet, 9 inches tall. I’m left-handed. I’m Caucasian. Those are fixed facts about me. I have no control over them. My emotions, however, are not so fixed. I have some level of control over them. Just as they are influenced by circumstances outside of me, my response to them steers them into the right direction. So how will we respond to our circumstances?
Let me use an example. Every day around noon my stomach starts to growl. That’s a circumstance beyond my control, and I typically do a pretty good job responding to it. But how do I respond? Ideally, I eat something healthy, like a sandwich and fruit, or some leftover chicken and a salad. If I respond every day by eating a triple bacon cheeseburger, large fries, and a soda, I can guarantee you before long my heart will be troubled, quite literally.
When Jesus tells us to not let our hearts be troubled, he uses a word that can also mean terrified or stirred. It describes those moments where our stomachs are churning with worry and fear, moments when our hearts are troubled. That doesn’t mean it’s a sin to ever feel this way. Jesus used this same word to say that he was troubled in John 11, 12, and 13. Troubled hearts are simply part of the human experience in a fallen world. But Jesus knows and offers the solution: his peace. Later in our chapter, Jesus gives that peace to his disciples:
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)
Jesus – the peace he offers – is the cure for troubled hearts.
So how do we go about getting that peace? Through belief in Jesus. This goes beyond mental agreement or affirmation. Jesus is talking about belief as complete trust and reliance. The disciples were told to place full and complete trust in the Son, just as they already did for the Father. To put it in today’s terms, Jesus essentially told them, “I know you are worried, but don’t worry. Instead, I want you to trust me on this.” Through Jesus, troubled hearts become trusting hearts. Sometimes it takes a storm raging around us to help us place our faith where it truly matters. Sometimes the ground around us needs to quake so we can see where the sure footing is.
You might think the disciples were in a situation totally different from ours. After all, they faced the departure of Christ where we know the rest of the story. But our situations aren’t all that different. The disciples believed that what really mattered in life was physically following this physical Jesus, traipsing around Palestine doing whatever he said. The prospect of Jesus leaving put all of that in serious jeopardy. Jesus’ goal for them was a work that began in their hearts, as it does ours. His plan involved new life, the establishment of God’s kingdom, where we proclaim God’s goodness and dwell with him forever. Sometimes that means losing a truly good thing. For the disciples it was the physical presence of their Rabbi. For us it’s losing a mentor or loved one, or going jobless or relationship conflict or health problems. It’s the loss of a good thing that reveals our need for the ultimate thing – God himself.
Having an 18-month-old in the house has really stretched my negotiating skills. How do you explain to a toddler that you are going to the basement to get something and quickly return without her having a meltdown at your absence? I won’t say it isn’t flattering, but my real goal is for Olivia to understand that I am leaving for a moment – probably to get something for her – and that I will be right back. I want her to trust me, to know that it’s going to be okay, to realize that if I can leave for a moment I’ll come back with her blanket so we can share a good snuggle time, which she loves.
If you’re like me, then you might be the 18-month-old sometimes, too. Are you going through a tough time? Is there something good in your life that is hard to let go of? Could it be that the loss of a good thing is meant to drive you to deeper trust in God? Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in Jesus. Place your confident trust in him and his plan.
Jesus prepares our place with the Father
Jesus revealed his plan to his disciples, too. He told them,
“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
Not only does Jesus provide us peace, he also prepares our place with the Father. Without him we would have no standing with God, but through Jesus our home is with God. By the way, if you’re like me and grew up with a translation that refers to these rooms as mansions, then know that it makes the most sense to translate this as rooms or dwelling places. Now far be it from me to contradict a hymn like “When We All Get to Heaven,” where we sing, “In the mansions bright and blessed, He’ll prepare for us a place.” Ira Stanphill’s “I’ve Got a Mansion,” also sung by Elvis Pressley, is even more emphatic:
“I’m satisfied with just a cottage below, A little silver and a little gold, But in that city where the ransomed will shine, I want a gold one that’s silver lined.”
I actually have no problem with people thinking of great physical rewards in heaven – even mansions – because the Bible mentions rewards like these in heaven. We get to look forward to them, but that isn’t quite what Jesus is getting at in this passage.
So what exactly was Jesus talking about here? The most immediate reference was to the temple itself, which Jesus called his Father’s house in John 2:16. The disciples most likely thought immediately of that local temple in Jerusalem. It even had the dwelling places or rooms off to the side, where visiting priests would stay. Jesus’ own uncle Zechariah would have stayed there when he ministered in the temple. The disciples, however, had no use for these particular rooms, because they were only available to members of the priesthood. But Jesus made another reference in connection with the temple. He used it as a metaphor for himself. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19-22). The Jewish people had embraced what John Piper calls a “materialistic deadness to spiritual reality” that would eventually lead not only to the destruction of the physical temple but also to the crucifixion of the Messiah.
In one sense Jesus is the temple, which explains why his work on the cross was described as Jesus preparing a place for us. It’s also a reminder why we are called the body of Christ. Our faith in him makes us part of that temple. And we become a source of good in the world as a result. Ezekiel 47 describes the new temple and the life-giving water that flows from it, providing new growth to trees and an estuary of life to the sea where it empties. It describes a day when the living water of Christ is distributed for the world to drink deeply and thrive. Jesus, the last Adam, returns humanity to the garden temple that belonged to the first Adam.
We get to be part of that. Even though Peter wasn’t part of the Levite tribe of priests, he realized later that All Christians are part of the priesthood and belong in the new temple of Christ, which he shares in 1 Peter 2:9:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
We belong in the dwelling places of the temple, because we are part of the priesthood. Plus, Paul declares all Christians – who are the body of Christ, who refers to himself as the temple – to be God’s temple in 1 Cor 3:16-17, saying,
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? …for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
We tend to get a lot of junk mail at home or in our email with exclusive offers, as though these are tailored to us and others simply aren’t welcome. That’s not really true for us, but there are apparently certain offers out there that are quite exclusive. Take credit cards for example. One of the most famous exclusive cards is the American Express Centurion Card. American Express doesn’t say exactly how a person is able to own one of these premium pieces of plastic, but people have figured out some of it: You have to be a platinum cardholder for over a year, and in that year you need to have charged at least $250,000. Meet that and the other secret criteria, and you’re in! Just pay the initial $5,000 fee, plus another $2,500 annually. In return you’ll have a 24-7 concierge, some complimentary hotel rooms – I’m guessing not at Motel 6 – personal shoppers, and the ability to shut down a retail store when you want some privacy. There are other cards like this, too, like the Dubai First Royal MasterCard, which comes with its own diamond set within the card. Ibrahim al Ansari, the chief executive of Dubai First, says about the card, “You ask for the moon and we try and get it.” You’ll have team of round-the-clock “lifestyle managers” whose sole purpose is to fulfill the cardholder’s every request. There’s also no credit limit, so think big. This is an invitation-only card offer, so keep checking your mail for a letter from Dubai First. I’m guessing you’ll know it when you see it.
That’s how offers go in our world. Isn’t it comforting to know that Jesus provides an open invite for us to be part of an exclusive club? You don’t need to qualify, because Jesus met the credentials for you. You don’t have to wait for your offer to come; it’s an open invitation.
Jesus went to prepare a place for all of us to be his followers, to be part of God’s family, members of God’s house, ministers of his good news of salvation to the world. We have a place with God because we belong to Christ. His dwelling place was with us so that ours could be with him. So while we’re talking about hymns, let’s embody Isaac Watts’ “Joy to the World”: “Let every heart prepare him room”! A place has been prepared for you. Have you accepted it? God longs for you to dwell with him.
Jesus alone paves the path to God
Even though the disciples were told these things, they still didn’t understand it. When Jesus told them they knew the way to where he was going, Thomas asked what he meant. Let me stick up for Thomas here, because he often gets a bad rap for doubting. What Thomas really did here was ask a question that everyone was thinking but were too timid to ask. And without this question we wouldn’t have gotten one of the greatest revelations from Christ: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus provides us with peace, prepares a place, and Jesus alone paves the path to God. The way to get to where Jesus was going is through Jesus himself. When we follow the path he has laid out, we do what Paul declared in Gal 2:20. We are crucified with Christ, and the new life that is raised up is not our old, sinful life but rather life in him. While the disciples knew the way – faith in Jesus – they were unaware that he remained the way. Like us today, they complicated matters and were unwilling to accept the simplicity of Christ’s offer: Believe in me.
When I really think about it, talking about Jesus as a life coach doesn’t go far enough. It paints an incomplete picture – a dangerous picture, even – of who Jesus really is. Jesus didn’t set aside his kingly glory and position, take on flesh and human weakness, arrive in the most humble of circumstances, walk this earth performing miracles, die a painful and violent death, and raise to new life just so that he could give us could coaching advice. No, he did these things because we desperately needed redemption. We needed life itself. Jesus is the way to that. As unpopular as it may be in our culture, or any culture, to say it, Jesus is the only way to that. There is no technique we can employ to take away the stain of sin in our lives. No mindfulness exercise will fix the problem. We can rebrand sin with clinical names or educational needs, but that doesn’t remove it. We can perform all the religious rituals there are, but those bring us no closer to peace with God. None of these is the way. None of these holds any saving truth. None of these brings life. Only Jesus does. Only in Jesus is Eden restored, our relationship with the Father.
In his book, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, John Piper writes,
But what is the ultimate good in the good news? It all ends in one thing: God himself. All the words of the gospel lead to him, or they are not the gospel. For example, salvation is not good news if it only saves from hell and not for God. Forgiveness is not good news if it only gives relief from guilt and doesn’t open the way to God. Justification is not good news if it only makes us legally acceptable to God but doesn’t bring fellowship with God. Redemption is not good news if it only liberates us from bondage but doesn’t bring us to God. Adoption is not good news if it only puts us in the Father’s family but not in his arms.[4]
Jesus is our point of access to God as part of his family. Does that resonate with you? We don’t simply have access, we have a place in his house!
What does it feel like to die?
Dr. Larry Petton shares a compelling story of a young pastor whose son was very sick and not expected to live long. Every night at bedtime the pastor and his wife put their son to bed while praying together for a miraculous healing, but it wasn’t to be. One night toward the end of his life, the boy asked his father, “Daddy, what does it feel like to die?”
Faced with this tough question, the father struggled to answer. He prayed for help to explain the answer to his young son. Then he put his hand on the boy’s face and said, “Son, it’s something like this. Night after night you go to sleep on the couch watching your favorite tv shows. You don’t know it, but I find you asleep and come and take you in my arms and place you in the room I built for you with my own hands.”
Then he choked out his next words. “And, son, one of these days……..you are going to fall asleep here, but don’t be afraid. Jesus is going to come and pick you up and take you to a special room He has built just for you.”[5]
Jesus has prepared a place for us. Let’s not allow our hearts to be troubled. Instead, believe in him, put your confidence in Christ. Trust in him as the only way to the Father, the only true path, the only source of life.
[1] http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/life-coaches.html
[2] https://www.lifecoachhub.com/beginners-guide-to-life-coaching/history-of-life-coaching
[3] http://www.lifecoach.com/what-is-a-life-coach
[4] Piper, John. Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2006. P. 62.
[5] http://www.sermoncentral.com/illustrations/sermon-illustration-dr-larry-petton-stories-heaven-death-children-83702.asp