Brie and I still find ourselves in Billings
The reason this is so important to me right now is due to the fact that as I continue to share the ways in which God has challenged my heart, and brought conviction to me for myself and the church, I also continually get a similar response. As I challenge individuals to question whether or not they are giving their all to God, whether they are putting all their energy into bringing the Kingdom of God, whether they are seeking God with all their heart, I hear in return that, “I must not attempt to do things on my own, that God must do it in me, that God must do it in us.”
It was at this point that I stopped writing four days ago. My heart did not feel like writing, and doubt had crept into my heart. It suddenly seemed crazy that I would dare to claim something as Biblical truth, that so many people had critiqued and criticized me for in recent times. Thus, for the past few days I have been reflecting heavily upon this very topic, and through prayer and the reading of scripture have decided that I must stick to my guns on this one. I am convinced that God does not fear us working too hard to follow him. Now the criticism that I have faced comes, I believe, from an absolute fear of work. The church has held so tightly to “grace alone” that it has crippled itself, and made the body of Christ a couch potato. Some people know that a man by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer challenged this very fact many decades ago, but the scary thing is that in many circles Bonhoeffer’s “costly grace” has been so trivialized that it too has no bite. It is thus that an absolute fear of self-righteousness or self-justification, or perhaps more fundamentally a fear of passionate discipleship leads some to see what God is teaching me to be arrogance, pride, and even selfishness on my part. I have prayed fervently over these very things. I know that pride is a demon that I have wrestled with, and I know that it still lingers in the pit of my soul, but I am convinced that my desire to know the Lord, and to serve the Lord, regardless of what that means, is not rooted in pride, selfishness or anything of the sort. My heart continually assures me that the foundation of my hunger is Jesus Christ Himself, and the understanding he has opened me up to, of the infinite debt that stands between he and I, is from and of him. Christ alone has made it possible for life to exist where there was only death. For so long that language, those words meant nothing to my heart, but as Christ has made them real in me my only desire, with Paul, is to live a life worthy of the Gospel of Christ. (In Philipians Paul instructs in 1:27, “conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” or in Colossians 1:9-10 Paul says that he prays that the Colossians would have knowledge of God’s will, and he prays that, “in order that you may have a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way.”)
The question now would be, I suppose, what does a life worthy of Christ look like. From my experience with Christians I think the popular answer would be that there is no such thing. We cannot live a life worthy of Jesus, because we are sinful creatures, we are human, and thus we are simply unworthy, end of discussion. I fail to believe though that Paul would make a goal for the Philippians and the Colossians that was impossible, and thus am led to believe that Paul means it when he says that we are to live a life worthy of Christ. Paul does not just toss around nice sounding, but useless jargon like we have a habit of doing in the modern church (I am referring directly to anything that sounds at all like the third sentence of this paragraph). Now, I agree that Christ died for us, he opened the door while we were unworthy, but must we really remain unworthy? Paul says in Romans 5:6-8, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul’s use of the word still in these verses fascinates me. He writes about being powerless, about being sinners as if it was a thing of the past. When Christ died we were as such, before we were given new life by Him we were as such, but now God has given us power, and we are no longer sinners. That seems to be what Paul’s words imply. The idea that we should no longer be sinners is pretty radical to me too, but then in 1 John 3:4-6 it reads, “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” These words boggle my mind, and they fly in the face of most everything I’ve ever heard growing up in the church, but they are the words of scripture, and they are pretty clear.
Now as I talk about sinlessness, as I did in my last blog, I continually get criticized for being self-righteous, and am continually reminded that I cannot rid myself of my own sin. I agree that I cannot, it says right there in John that Christ appeared to take away our sins. However, the fact that I cannot do it, does not mean that it should not be done. Thus, it only seems to make since, that if I look at my life and see sin, there should be nothing but striving to have it eradicated. I should not be alright with there being sin in my life. If nothing else, this goal of sinlessness and Paul’s goal of a life worthy of Christ should act like a litmus test for us on our way. We can weigh our lives against Christ, asking if what we see in ourselves is worthy of Him and His Gospel. Does my life look like what Christ died for it to be? Another important question is, Does the church, the Body of Christ, look like what Christ died for it to be? This is an equally important question I think, because it is very easy to ask the first one, answer it with a no, but than excuse ourselves because that is what all Christians in the church look like. However, if the body is sick, and we as a member of the body are sick, it is at the very least a good first step to healing the body, if we work to make ourselves well. It is at this point that so many people raise their defenses, mandating that there is no way we can make ourselves well. However, this is simply another well-versed excuse to stay sick. I did not say we must make ourselves well, on our own, without Jesus. Everything I am saying is obviously, I think, centered around Jesus Christ. Jesus is the doctor who will make us well, in fact more than that, he is the medicine that will make us well. When you go to the doctor for a physical illness he/she might prescribe you a medicine, which you will then take and be made well. You did not cure yourself, really in this case the doctor didn’t either, but the pill did. However, without your work to go to the doctor, to get the pill, and to take the pill, it would never have had a chance to make you well. Thus, you worked to make yourself well. In the same way, Christ commands that we work to be made well by Him.
As I tell people that I am working as hard as I can to know Christ, working as hard as I can to follow him, working as hard as I can to be made well, working as hard as I can to serve Him and my neighbor the common response has been, as I’ve said already, “What’s with all this I-language, what makes you think you can do all things? You are not to do these things. God is to do these things.” Let me tell you what such criticisms and warnings are like. Let us imagine that there is a young family, a father, mother and young son. The father is walking across the front yard on his journey across the street to take something to the neighbors. Meanwhile, as the father takes his first steps to go, the boy asks his mother if he can run and catch up in order to follow his father across the street to the neighbors. The mother than responds, “No, your father has to go with you!” Would the boy not protest, if he was intelligent enough, that by catching his father before he crosses the street this is the very goal he is trying to achieve. He wants to go with his father, thus how can it be logical for his mother to not let him go because he must go with his father. Yet this is very much the same critique that I have received over and over again, that I cannot do these things without God, without Christ. Of course not, but as I work my hardest to follow Jesus how can I be accused of doing so without him. It is He, I am following, is it not.
Now it may not be logical to rebuke someone for following Jesus without letting God help you. However, that would assume that the Jesus I am following is really Jesus, that the God I know to be working in my life is really God. It would be possible that I am following, or have found an impostor, and perhaps this is the real issue many should be raising, and it is a question I have surely wrestled with in the past weeks. Over the past year, I have been in a community, in communities really, where I have been nurtured in the growth (or at least what I have assumed to be growth) that has occurred within me. Thus, the negative, defensive feedback I have received, though not surprising, has forced me to make sure that I have not lost it, to make sure that what I have heard is really what God is saying. Time of prayer has brought great peace to my soul along with being consistently reaffirmed by scripture. God wants much of us as we make much of Him. Of this I am convinced.
Even as I think about the simple instruction from Paul to live a life worthy of Christ, I hear Christ telling me what it means to be worthy. In Matthew 10:37-39 Jesus says, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” I truly believe we must listen to Jesus more closely as he says these things. In a church that is so focused on building strong family bubbles, a church where taking up your cross often means buying a piece of jewelry, where following resists the use of the words obedience and slave, and much of our teaching is about how to live a better life now, we have got to hear the echoing discord between Jesus’ and our messages. Jesus’ message that some will be found unworthy is not a popular one. Yet Jesus’ unpopular teachings go even farther as he talks about the narrow way, and says that few will find it. The assumption seems to have been made by many that if you call yourself a Christian you are on the narrow way. This cannot be though, it wouldn’t make much sense, that Jesus would say the road is narrow and hard to find, when he meant to say the road is open and you can’t miss it. Then in Luke, he says these words, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” Far from fearing people working doggedly to walk the way, that is exactly what Jesus commands. He says we must make every effort. Somehow though, I have been applauded my whole life, and encouraged for being one of the hardest workers when it came to being a good soccer player, or winning math competitions, or getting good grades in school, but now as I work my hardest to forget what is behind and strain towards what is ahead I am encountering resistance (Phil. 3). Sadly, I also think many in the church would be much more accepting if I told them about how hard I was working for a raise and promotion in some job than they are as I tell them about how hard I am chasing after Christ and his will, and what I am willing to let go in order to get there.
This is a great tragedy and it breaks my heart, all while motivating me even more. What we work hardest for, it seems to me, must betray much about what we love most, what we desire most, and I know for much of my life as a Christian, it has not been Christ that has been betrayed as my first love. At this point, one could try to catch me by arguing that I am not loving Christ more, but just realizing that if I did I would do more for him, and so instead of loving him, I am just replacing it with work. Though logically this might work, I do not believe it is a possibility with Christ. We are commanded to love God with everything, but when Jesus comes to teach us what that looks like, he does not begin with great stories of how great God is, he begins with the simple command of “follow me”. Then he turns his back and walks away. The disciples did not love Jesus first, they obeyed first. Obedience nurtures love, and, like I said earlier, following Jesus means your spending a lot of time with Jesus. The places Jesus wants to take us (like the cross) are pretty terrifying often, and nothing builds love like trusting in your God. Only by walking through the valley of the shadow of death do I learn that I have a God whom I can trust while in there. Our actions, the things we do, are important and necessary. Jesus wants obedience, and he wants action that reflects true loyalty, true discipleship. He compares the Kingdom of God to a guy who sells all he has to buy a field with a great treasure, and yet there just aren’t many Christians around who have sold out for the Kingdom of God
Lets turn to Paul for a bit to reaffirm the importance of our effort, even effort that might appear radical. Radical effort, radical things are not radical for Jesus, they just are the things that Jesus and his followers do. Looking at Colossians 3 really illustrates the necessity of our effort, of our moving toward Christ, of our making every effort. I will highlight the language having to do with personal action, the things Paul wants followers of Christ to be doing.
“Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set Your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with weach other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
Now I am not saying that we should do anything without Christ, but neither Paul or Jesus were afraid of us making too much of an effort. I am not undermining God’s ability to work in the unwilling, but once Christ has claimed us, we should be doing these things. We should be working towards these things. We should be making every effort. Peter gets in on the action too, saying in light of God’s great gifts and love, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them we may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness and to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure it will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of Jesus Christ.” What I am saying does not trade in grace for works. Look at what Peter says here. The first half is the grace, the amazing things God has done, the second is what Bonhoeffer calls the costly part of “Costly grace.” It is costly because it is what you do. It is not costly because of what Jesus did for you, that is grace. The cost is yours, what you are doing, how you are selling out for Jesus and the treasure that he is. We have got to stop being afraid of talking about what we are doing for the Kingdom of God
I apologize for the length of this, and I have perhaps prematurely ended it, in order to keep it somewhat reasonable. As I finish this, we are preparing to go to my grandparents in northeastern Montana. I know not if we will have internet access for the next days or perhaps week or more, so this may be the last update for a while. Blessings to all,
Andrew
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