Mind the Gap

SUMMARY

Karl Ihfe begins a new series called "The Expectation Gap: Where Faith and Life Meet," inspired by Steve Cuss's book. He addresses the reality that followers of Jesus often experience a gap between core beliefs—like "God loves me" and "God is with me"—and their actual lived experience. Drawing from Mark 9, where a desperate father brings his tormented son to Jesus and declares "I believe, help me overcome my unbelief," Karl demonstrates that even Jesus' disciples experienced this tension between faith and doubt, as seen in Matthew 28 where some worshiped the risen Christ while others doubted.

Karl distinguishes between "precious beliefs" (head beliefs we hold) and "core beliefs" (body beliefs that hold us), explaining how misalignment between these creates spiritual gaps. He shares personally about his own core belief that "if it's to be, it's up to me," which conflicts with his precious belief in Jesus' promise to send the Holy Spirit as our guide (John 16). The series aims to help people mind these gaps—becoming aware of them rather than stumbling over them—and learn to experience God's love, presence, and spiritual progress more fully. Karl concludes with practical steps: treating ourselves with the same kindness we show others and replacing negative self-talk with truth about our identity as God's beloved disciples.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Well, if you have Mark 9 open, invite you to stay there for just a moment. We're launching a new series, it's going to go for six weeks, called the Expectation Gap, where faith and life meet. It's based on a book by a writer, an author, a pastor. He's been a member of his church leading churches for three decades named Steve Cuss. He's written a lot of great things, but I've been inspired by much of what he has shared in this book.

And I'm going to share some of those thoughts with you over these next few weeks together as we think about a couple of things. I have a question I want to begin with this morning. Have you ever noticed a gap between what you believe and what you experience? Or maybe have you ever noticed the gap in what others say they believe and then what we see them do? I've been thinking about this series for a number of months now as I've been reflecting just on my own faith journey, and I'll share a little bit of that with you here in a few minutes.

But also thinking some about our culture and our cultural climate and in particularly our political climate, of how we have so much happening around us and so many churches and Christians kind of claiming a particular ideology and belief set and system and going back and comparing, okay, how does that match up with what scripture says is true of what people say they believe and then how they respond? And we've talked about this in a number of different ways, but I hope this series will be a chance for us to step back and think about what are some of those things that we believe are true. Things like God loves us, he loves me. He loves you. God is with us.

He is with you. God is at work in your life. Right. These are foundational, core truths, beliefs that we hold as followers of Jesus. And yet there are times, if we're honest, at least if I'm honest, that our experience says something different.

Right. I know that God loves me, but sometimes I don't feel very lovable. And I know that God is with me, but sometimes I don't feel God's presence in my life. I know I'm growing in my faith, but sometimes there doesn't seem to be much fruit to show of it. There's this gap, this gap between what I know and what I experience.

And the space between belief and experience is what Steve Cus calls the expectation gap. That there is this gap that exists. And here's the good news, and I'll give it to you right up front. This is gonna be true of every week in this sermon. Having a gap in your faith doesn't mean you're failing at faith.

Amen. Having a gap in your faith doesn't mean you're failing at faith. It means you're human. And we're gonna press into that a little bit more over the next few weeks together. This series is not about how to close or bridge that gap by just trying harder or just getting more will or more discipline.

It's about learning how to get unstuck and how to relax into God's presence, how to learn to be present with God and God present with us even when there are gaps. You know, one of the biggest challenges as followers of Jesus is learning how to navigate the gaps. Right. Michael and Juliana are going to get a lesson. They've been baptized into the Holy Spirit.

They're about to be baptized into this reality that. That faith and life don't always match up in the ways that we expect and hope sometime there are these gaps. And so how do we learn to navigate that? You know, growing up in church, you begin to think, well, you shouldn't have a gap, like if you're a real Christian. And there are no gaps.

And the truth is, that's not the testimony of Scripture. In fact, what we find is there are lots of gaps in people in scripture and some of those who are just most closely associated with Jesus. Maybe you remember this story in Matthew 28 where Jesus has been raised from the dead. This incredible experience has happened. And he's invited all his disciples to join him on a mountainside.

He's about to send them on a mission. And here's what Matthew tells us. He says the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. And when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted.

Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And surely I am with you always. To the very end of the age, this unbelievable thing has happened. Jesus predicted it would happen, and it happens.

And he's standing right there with them. And his disciples, they worshiped him. And some doubt it.

And Jesus doesn't rebuke them. He doesn't say what I might have said. How dare you. I told you this would happen. What's the matter with you?

What's wrong with you? Can't you see? Don't you understand? That's not Jesus response. Instead he says, you go, you who worship and sometimes doubt, you who have gaps in your faith, you go and you tell the story.

I think there's a lot of mercy in Jesus. I mean, how could these people doubt they saw Jesus? I remember thinking, as a young Christian man, if I could have just been with Jesus, I wouldn't have been like those bozos, Peter, whatever man. I would have been true believer. Yeah.

And then life happens, right? Some of the disciples were still trying to make sense of all that had happened in just the last, you know, three days. All their hopes and dreams seem to be down the toilet, down the drain. And then all of a sudden, he's back. And how.

What. What do I do with that? Even following Jesus for a while, we can learn there's still gaps. So what do we do? You know, one of the writers of the New Testament was one of Jesus brothers.

His name is Jude. And when he was dealing with how do we deal with the gaps? What do we do with doubt? What does that look? How do we treat people who are dealing with doubt?

This was Jude's advice. He says, be merciful. He doesn't say, be corrective, be impatient, be annoyed and judgmental. He says, be merciful. Doubt is not a failure of faith.

Doubt is often the place where faith becomes more honest and more real. And if we're willing, it can change our lives. As we saw in the story of Matthew 28, or as we heard Melissa and Holden Reed just a few minutes ago of the story in Mark 9. Scripture captures beautifully this tension that we have of our faith, our belief in our experience in life. What do we do?

In Mark 9? This Father brings his tormented son to Jesus. And you can tell he's exasperated. He's done everything he knows to do. He's running on fumes.

And he brings his son to these disciples, and they can't do anything. Now, there are a number of levels I wish we could just dive into this week. I just found it so interesting. He brings them to Jesus disciples, and they can't do anything. And so when Jesus shows up and he finds out what's happening, and he confronts this guy, if, if.

And this man blurts out this prayer, maybe one of the most honest prayers in all of Scripture, I believe, help me overcome my unbelief. There's this gap, Jesus, and I don't know what to do. This Father's prayer illustrates this beautifully, doesn't it? This gap between faith and experience between what we believe and what we experience in our lives. You see, faith always has gaps.

It's not one or the other we see in Mark 9, it's both. They're both together. That a true disciple, a follower of Jesus is going to deal with faith and doubt. Because doubt is not the opposite of faith, right? You can only have doubts when there is faith.

The opposite of faith is certainty.

So as long as there's faith, there's always going to be doubt. Meaning as we're on this side of heaven, there's always going to be gaps. So church, how do we learn to live with those gaps? How do we learn to deal with them? You see, Jesus doesn't reject the Father on this gap in his faith.

Instead, he heals his Son. Which tells us something, I think pretty important, that Jesus isn't waiting for you to resolve the gap, to resolve whatever contradiction there may be before he meets you, before he engages you and invites you to take your next step on the journey of faith. You see, I grew up in church. I mean, I wasn't born in the pew, but about as close as I could be. As soon as I was able, my parents had me in church and we went to church, right?

We were Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, every time the doors were open, we were there. As I grew up, when I had football practice on Wednesday nights, it ended at 6 o' clock and guess what? We went to church. And I'm tired and I'm sore and we're going to church. There was no excuse that was good enough to get me out of going to church.

I grew up in church. When I went to college, I was like many of our college students and several will be joining us again this week. I went to church. I was involved in church. In fact, my job, my part time job at the end of my college undergraduate career was I was the youth intern for the youth group at the church that I attended.

When I went to grad school, I wanted to be a marriage and family therapist. Actually, I started wanting to be a child psychologist, child therapist. So I did my degree there. But I kept sensing God calling me back into ministry, back into working with people in a church. And so I stayed around after I finished that master's and studied theology.

And afterwards I got my first job. In fact, I've had two jobs in my life for my career in 25 years, almost 26 years, both of them have been a part of a church, serving in a local church. Now, I'm not giving you my resume so that you'll go, wow, you're a great guy. I'm telling you, like, I'm all in. Okay?

I'm all in on this story of Jesus. I'm all in. I've dedicated my entire life to sharing it with others and trying to live it out in such a way that others might ask, who is that God? Who is a guy that could take a bozo like you and turn him into actually somebody who could serve and love and be kind to people. So I'm all in on this.

I assumed that the deepest core belief in me was that I believed in Jesus. That was the most important thing to me. That was the deepest belief. And so I was really surprised to discover a few months ago, I don't know that that's the core's deepest belief. And you go, well, Karl, isn't that a problem as a preacher?

And I'd say, well, actually, I don't think so. I think that's my problem as a human. I was curious and surprised to discover that it's my most precious belief. It's the thing that I hold most closely to me, right? It's what I've organized my whole life around.

It's what I've organized my marriage around and raising my kids around. It's the most precious belief I have. What I discovered is there are some deep beliefs in me that I wasn't consciously aware of that were actually getting enacted and taking over the way I operated in my life. Maybe this will sound familiar to you. When life takes a wrong turn, right?

Things don't go the way you expect them to go. At least for me. Most recently a couple years ago at the passing of my mom, right? Life doesn't always go the way you think it's going to go.

When you get tired, when you're exhausted from all the things you have to do, or when you're anxious, when you're worried something's going on and you get a phone call. I got phone calls in the past to go, there's something on the test that we're not sure. Learn to do more right and that little pit of your stomach starts to churn. Life is not going the way that I want it to go. You see, each and every one of us have these precious beliefs, these things that we hold really dear and close to us.

But we also have these deep core beliefs. And I love how Steve cus in his book he describes them. He says, think about it like this. There are head beliefs, things that we know like intuitively and. And then there are Body beliefs, right?

Those body beliefs hold us. We hold head beliefs, and body beliefs hold us. So he says. He writes this, my head holds my precious belief in God, but my body reacts to beliefs that have taken hold of me. He gives a couple examples.

He says, so I believe in the freedom that we have in Christ, but I experience sometime being stuck and enslaved to different things in the world around me.

I believe in my head that God loves me, but I experience my body betrays that. I don't always feel very lovable. You see that core belief, that deep belief will hold us back from living the life we want to live. This gap opens up. I mean, do you have any beliefs running around in your life that you've noticed start to kind of separate you from what you really believe about God?

These things, the thing about these beliefs is they can sometimes be hard to locate because they often operate in our subconscious, like not in our conscious awareness. We just do. They just kind of run on autopilot and we're not always aware of them. Like, you may believe in your head that God's a God of peace and he wants to give you his peace. And yet your body, you feel anxiety, anxious, worried about things.

And here's the challenge. If we don't sort this out, if we don't begin to try to understand this gap, what we learn, and Steve says, is when head beliefs and body beliefs are misaligned, the body wins every time.

Core beliefs are hard to spot. Those deep beliefs are sometimes hard to spot because they just seem normal. That's just what I do. When a problem hits, this is just what I do. It's just how I respond.

It's just what I think. So maybe some of these sound familiar. My job is to make everyone else feel better. That's not necessarily something you intuitively know. It's just something you kind of know, right?

Growing up in your family, in your neighborhood, with your friends, in your situation, it's my job to make everyone else feel better or I'm not really worth asking for help.

Maybe other people, not me or other people deserve care more than I do, or like the one that smacked me in the face. If it's to be, it's up to me. If something's going to change, if something's going to be different, if life's going to go in a new direction, I'm going to have to figure some things out. I'm going to have to get more discipline. I'm going to have to understand.

I'm going to have to learn. I'm going to have to grow. I'm going to have to fill in the blank. If it's to be, it's up to me.

Does any core belief come to mind for you? One of those deep beliefs that you're not often aware of, but man, when pressure, when anxiety, when struggle, when confrontation, when things don't go the way you want them to go, what's that core belief that comes up? See, if I'm honest, mine comes up especially in stressful situations, when I'm feeling stressed about something that needs to be done or hasn't been done, or when I'm feeling anxious or when things aren't going my way. So in my head, I remember John 16, right? I believe when Jesus told his disciples as he was about to go into heaven, he said, very truly, I tell you, it's good for you that I'm going away.

It's actually a good thing because unless I go away, the advocate won't come. But if I go, I'll send him to you. And not only will I send him to you, when he, the spirit of truth, the advocate, comes, he'll guide you into truth. And I'm like, amen. That sounds like a good thing to believe.

I believe that then experience in my body, my core belief, begins to betray me. If I don't do something, who's gonna do it? I mean, who can I really trust to do it? I'll take care of it. I'll do it right.

So my no button just breaks and my yes button gets stuck in the. Hey, Karl, can you? Yes. Can you? Yes.

Can you? Yes. Can you? Can you? Yes.

Well, I've said yes to all these things and who could I trust to say I need help? Well, nobody, because they're not going to do it the right way or the way that I like it or the way that I want it. So I'm just going to. I'm going to do it. Kick it to over function or I have to figure out how to change course or make things work.

These pieces aren't going together. What can I do?

How can I solve this?

Or as a 9 on the enneagram, if that means anything to you. I don't like conflict and I don't like people being upset. So how can I solve this? How can I make everybody feel okay? How can I take all this emotional tension and find a relief valve so that we don't have to feel just, pssh, I forget it's good for Jesus to have gone away.

Why? Because he sent his spirit. And as we saw these two young souls say, I want that spirit. I want it to guide me and I want it to lead me. And when I'm looking for a situation, I don't know what to say.

I want it to tell me the truth. And Jesus says, no problem. When that spirit comes, he'll lead you into truth.

See, when my core beliefs start operating, especially if I'm not aware of it, they begin to block my ability to experience God, to remember that he's with me. So when I'm facing a problem or challenge or a gap that I don't have to solve it, like God's with me, he will lead me in the way I need to go. Am I listening? That's what I say. I believe.

But am I believing it? See, my core belief starts to run on autopilot and I don't remember choosing it, but it's there. And it sure likes to be in charge when I'm not paying attention.

Kaylee and I were on a walk this week and she was asking me this question. Got me fired up, man, fired up. If I was there, I would, you know. And it was like 10 minutes of like, bleh before I go. Not one time did I think, I wonder what God might have to say about this.

Why? Because it's my job to figure it out.

Really? Is that what you believe? Well, no. I mean, when you put it that way. No, obviously.

But what about my experience, right? When I come face to face with that gap?

We say we believe God loves us, but our deeper belief betrays us because it tries to get us to think we're not lovable.

Well, it's no wonder we struggle to experience God's love. It's because our core beliefs and our precious beliefs, they're misaligned. And it creates this gap and it's blocking our experience. It's preventing us from experiencing the relationship with God that we want. When Kaylee and I were recently overseas, we got to ride several trains in England.

And every time your train pulls up to the train station, if you've been there before, you know, there's this voice comes on the loudspeaker and it says, mind the gap. It's actually a woman's voice. It sounds much nicer than that. But mind the gap. Mind the gap.

Why? Because there's a gap between where you are in the train and where you want to go the platform. There's this gap, and if you're not mindful of it, you'll step right into the gap and you'll trip and stumble and fall. The same is true in our faith. And when it comes to where we are on our spiritual journey, where we'd like to be, there's a gap.

If we don't mind the gap, we're going to stumble and we're going to fall.

You see, between what we believe and what we experience, there's a gap. And so Steve's advice in his book, and it's advice I'm trying to implement in my life, I want to give it to you. Here's the simple but challenging solution he offers up. He says, put yourself on your conscious list of relationships. I know some of you are like, what?

Which was my first response to that as well. He says, think about it this way. Just for a moment, imagine who are the people in your family. Just think for a moment, who are the people in your family? Make a little mental list.

Many of us think, mom, dad, sibling, a parent, maybe a grandparent, an extended family, aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, whatever. Who are those folks that you have in your family, in your relationship? He says, how long did it take you to get to the list where you included yourself?

So the look you're giving me, that was my look too. Like, didn't think about that. He says, well, you've actually been in relationship with yourself for a while now, if you didn't know. And actually that relationship is pretty important. He says this.

He says, your capacity to relax into God's love and presence is related to your relationship with yourself.

And you think about that for a minute.

He says, see, how we treat ourselves often gets expressed and exposed in how we deal with others. But he says it also gets expressed in how we relate to God, in our ability to connect with, relate to, experience God's love, to relax into his presence. He says, it's directly related to our relationship with ourself, what we think about ourself, what we believe, our core belief and our precious beliefs. And are there some gaps? And if so, he says, it's gonna impact our relationships.

So the next couple of weeks together, we're gonna look at some of these specific gaps. And he names three specifically, there are others, but these three we'll kind of dive deeper into. But he says gap number one is experiencing God's love is connected to the story you tell yourself and learning to relax into God's love over your own view of yourself. And how I experience God's love, it's connected to the story. I tell myself, we're gonna take a look at that.

We're also gonna look at the second gap, experiencing God's presence, he says it's directly connected to your own reactivity and learning to notice and lower your reactivity. And our experience of God's presence in our life has something to do with how we respond to the world around us. We're going to look at that gap. The last one, he says, is making spiritual progress. Right, Growing in your faith.

He says it's related to our approach to scripture, to God's Word, and to our false expectations. So we're going to dive and spend some time thinking about that. But again, the hope and the reality here is by doing this, by trying to mind the gap, we'll become aware of how there are some core beliefs deep down inside of us that are actually keeping us, preventing us from connecting in a deeper way with God, from experiencing his love, from knowing he is with us. Many of us know, like our hero of faith, who is that man, that woman in your life, like, real, tangible person who's a hero of faith, They've learned to mind these gaps. The people that we love and admire so much, who've had such a deep impact on us are not people who didn't go through anything.

Yesterday, many of us gathered right here in this very room as we were celebrating the life of Larry Christian. And many of you know and love Larry. What an incredible man. If you know Larry. Larry didn't have an easy life.

He didn't go through nothing. Larry went through a lot. In fact, the last couple of decades of his life were really challenging as he was married to a woman who dealt with dementia, and it ended up taking her life. Larry had to navigate and walk through all of that. But if you were with Larry, you never thought, man, he's bitter.

No, Right. It was the opposite. Like every time we saw Larry and Larry, I keep pointing over here, Vic. I'm not pointing at you, buddy. He sat right in front of Vic and he smiled all the time.

He was an encouraging force in our church. Why? Because he learned to mind the gap that between my beliefs and what I experienced, there's this gap. And so how do I learn to navigate that gap? Well, I keep leaning into Jesus.

I keep following him even when it doesn't make sense. I keep obeying him and I keep doing what he asks me to do. And it has this profound impact on his life in such a way that when his grandkids got up here to talk about their granddad, it was unbelievable. It's the kind of stuff that I'm, if I'm ever blessed with Grandkids. I hope they could say that kind of stuff about me when I'm gone.

We knew he loved us. He drove 87,000 miles to be at our events. That's three and a half times around the globe, right? He would drive. Why?

Because he wanted them to know. Well, who does that? Who has time to drive 87,000 miles? Give me a. No.

No. I chose to do that. Why? Because he found a way to mind that gap. In a couple days, we're going to celebrate another dear sister in Christ who was as kind and as gentle and as warm and as loving a human being as I've ever met.

One of the first that I ever got to meet when I moved here. And she loved on my kiddos and was so gracious to them, so kind.

Why? I mean, how? Because she mind the gap. And she understood life isn't perfect, and it doesn't always go the way that you want to go. And sometimes you believe stuff, and it's not until life punches you in the face that you start to realize, wow, there's a gap there.

And so we have to stay leaning into Christ. We have to find ways to navigate through that. Why? Steve says a lot of it has to do with what story are we telling ourselves. Are we actually living out what Jesus has been saying?

Do we believe about us what God believes about us? If John 3:16 is true, I mean, if that's true, church, that changes everything. That God believes so much in you. He loved you so much, he was not willing to let you perish, to wander around, to be lost and broken and lonely and afraid. Instead, he sent his son because he loves you.

You're worth loving, like that's the truth. But our world doesn't often affirm that. So there's this gap. What do we do? Well, the next few weeks together, church, come join me, dive into the Word together.

And we're gonna look at, okay, how do we keep that? And here's a couple things I'll invite you to do, and then I'll be done. Number one, list three things you do for other people you love and do one for yourself. One of the challenges we're gonna see is sometimes we treat ourselves in ways that we would never treat another person. I mean, how many of you talk to yourself in a way you would never talk to another person?

So he says, here's one thing you do. Write a list of three things that you do for another person and do one for yourself. So do you check on them? You see how they're doing? Do you listen to them?

Do you believe? Try it out this week. Do a self check. How am I doing? Again, one of the convicting things for me.

He says, one of the reasons why we have trouble connecting with God, it's because we're deeply disconnected from. From ourselves. And when people ask you, hey, how are you doing? Our stock answer is fine, right? How many of us stop and go, how am I doing?

I don't like that question. I don't like that question. It's too invasive. It's too personal. I become aware of the gaps and how I'm powering up and trying to solve them myself instead of, am I relying on John 16, where Jesus says, hey, I'm sending you my spirit.

He's gonna guide you into truth. And I'm like, yeah, got it. But do I? Do I got it? The other thing he says is list one thing that you would say to yourself that you'd never say to another human being and replace it.

Steve says, hey, my deal is I call myself an idiot all the time. I don't know what your deal, I don't know what you call yourself, but I would say, flip it, change it. Instead of an idiot, you're a disciple who's learning. I'm somebody who needs to get better at stuff. I can grow.

I'm someone that God loves so much that he wasn't willing to just let me wander, but he invites me to be a part of his family. See, this isn't self indulgence. This is spiritual realignment. And that's my goal in this series. That expectation gap, how do we mind the gap?

My prayer is, as we walk through this together, we're going to learn from Jesus. We're going to listen to his wisdom and examples like this in Mark 9, and then take our next step so that God's love will be more accessible and his presence will be more tangible and our progress will be more visible. Let's pray. God, I do pray that you would bless us as we jump into a new series and into a new year, that you would help us to mind the gap, whatever it may be. I know each one of us comes from a different place and different experiences, facing different challenges.

Holy Spirit, I'm so thankful that you are able to navigate them all, that Jesus, you are with us and you know, you know what we faced. You have been there and you have promised to show us the way. God, would you show us the way? Would you help us to get real honest this week? Would you help us to put ourselves back on our conscious list of relationships and recognize that how we treat ourselves, what we think about ourselves, has a huge impact on what we think about others and what we think about you.

And so, God, would you speak truth to us once again? Help us to remember who we are and who you created us to be, and then help us to live differently in spite of that or because of that. Father, thank you for the precious examples that you have given to us here at Broadway. As we've laid dear brother and sister to rest this week, we pray for their families as they mourn their passing. Gladys and Larry But God, I pray that you would just encourage their hearts in a deep way that the incredible legacy of faith that they left us, they showed us what it looks like to mind gaps, to not have everything go right, and yet to cling to their faith in you.

And because of that, God, they became genuine, kind, loving, encouraging saints. God, we long to be with you and with them one day. But between that and this, would you help us to live more faithfully as your people this week? God, help us to believe not just with our heads, but with, but with our hearts. And God, may we experience your presence, your love and your direction.

This week, in Jesus name, we pray.