Jesus, Take the Wheel

Last week my sermon considered faith -- what it is and why we have it. This week, my sermon is about trust, which is a natural consequence of faith. After all, if we have faith in someone, doesn't it make sense for us to trust that person? Do what does it mean to trust God? This sermon uses the words of a popular song to consider the answer to that question.

If any of you are country music fans, you might recognize the title of today’s sermon as the title of a song by Carrie Underwood. It tells the story of a young woman who is driving home on Christmas Eve to see her family, her baby asleep in the back seat. In the words of the song, she was “low on faith and gasoline,” and because she had a lot on her mind, she wasn’t really paying attention to the road. Before she knew it, she was spinning on a sheet of black ice, out of control and heading for disaster. Terrified, she cried, “Jesus, take the wheel. Take it from my hands! I’m letting go; so give me one more chance and save me from this road I’m on. Jesus, take the wheel!”

I’ll let the words to the song tell you the rest of the story. “It was still getting colder when she made it to the shoulder and the car came to a stop. She cried when she saw that baby in the backseat sleeping like a rock. And for the first time in a long time, she bowed her head to pray. She said, ‘I’m sorry for the way I’ve been living my life. I know I’ve got to change, so from tonight, Jesus, take the wheel.’”

That’s a powerful song. Maybe it touches you deep down inside like it does me. Every time I hear that song, I wonder whether I’m really letting Jesus take the wheel of my life, or whether I’m actually being a back-seat driver. You all know about back-seat drivers. Back-seat drivers are supposed to just be along for the ride, but they really want to be in charge of the whole trip. Back-seat drivers are always making comments and suggestions, and telling the driver what to do. Back-seat drivers don’t trust anybody else to get them where they need to go. When we try to be back-seat drivers with our lives, we undermine all God’s efforts to make our lives meaningful. God can get us where we need to go if we’ll just take our hands off the wheel and get out of God’s way!

The author of Deuteronomy didn’t know anything about cars or steering wheels or back-seat drivers, but he did know that there are two ways that we can live our life: God’s way… and the world’s way. God’s way leads to a rich, full life. God’s way is making time for prayer, loving others as much as we love ourselves, and showing our faith through deeds of charity and compassion. The world’s way is very different. The world’s way is harshness, selfishness, and judgment. The Scriptures say that in the end, it leads to death. “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction,” says Deuteronomy. “Choose life, so that you and your children may live.” If we let Jesus take the wheel and drive us God’s way, we will travel the road of life. If we don’t, we’ll end up on the road to death.

That seems easy enough. There’s no secret to how to live God’s way. We can read it over and over and over in scripture. We should “do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God.” That’s the prophet Micah’s summary of it (6:8); and the Old Testament law and the other prophets and all the Gospels say the very same thing. We all know what we should do; but very few people actually do it. Why do you suppose that is the case? I think that, in the end, it is an issue of trust.

Let’s go back to that song again, and the image of Jesus as our driver. Jesus is the only one who knows what’s on the road ahead. If we want to say safe, we really need to trust him. We don’t have a road map of the future or a GPS system that will tell us which decisions will bring us joy and which ones will bring us pain. We can’t see beyond the limited vision of our imaginations. Like driving using the headlights on a car, we can only see so far ahead. And there are bumps ahead of us that might run us off the road altogether. We can’t see those coming up. We have to trust in something beyond our limited selves. Now, if we have faith that God exists, and if we have faith that God is a loving God, and if we have faith that Jesus is God incarnate, then doesn’t it make sense to trust Jesus as our driver?

The trouble is that Jesus frequently drives us over roads that don’t look very appealing. For example, loving others as we love ourselves is a very difficult road to travel. It’s full of bumps and ruts. And that road of mercy and compassion is really hard to stay on! Why, sometimes we can’t even be sure where the sides of the road are. The road of selfishness and judgment, though, is wide and well-paved. It’s easy to see where that road goes! And sometimes Jesus drives us right into a tunnel that’s so black that we can’t see our nose in front of our face. Those are the times that we wonder if Jesus really knows where he’s going. And those are the times when we really do have to trust him to take the wheel.

Maybe you’re still wondering whether you should let Jesus take the wheel of your life. Would you like some examples of people who let God do the driving? Just read Hebrews 11. It gives a whole list of people who had enough faith to let God drive their lives. Abraham is a great example. Abraham heard God tell him to leave his ancestral home and go somewhere else – somewhere he had never been before. In fact, he didn’t even know where he was going; but he trusted God enough to travel to an unknown land. Moses is another example. After being brought up in the palace of Pharaoh, Moses fled from Egypt and made his home in what we now call the desert of Sinai. Years later, God told him to go back to Egypt and confront Pharaoh – and then to lead the Israelite slaves out of Egypt. Despite his misgivings – and he had a lot of them – Moses trusted God enough to do just that. And what about Esther? Esther isn’t in Hebrews 11, but she should be. Esther was the queen of Persia when she heard about a plot to kill all the Jewish people. She risked her life to go to the king and expose the plot. Because she let God take the wheel of her life, the entire Hebrew nation was saved.

“Jesus, take the wheel!” That’s not just the title of a great country and western song. It should be what we say every single morning, right after we get out of bed and give thanks for another day of life. It’s a good thing to say when we have a difficult decision to make, and we pray for guidance. And it’s a good thing to say when we are tempted to hate, or to take revenge, or to despair of our lives. Remember the choice that Deuteronomy gives us. “I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. Choose life, so that you and your children may live.”

Yes, choose life. Let Jesus take the wheel.