Naked, Shame-free Unity

In the Beginning - Marriage

In the beginning God made the Universe, and as a part of that process he made man.  God made Adam as the pinnacle of his creative work, but when He had finished He for the first time decided something was flawed.  Adam was incomplete.  “For Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.” (Genesis 2:20)  Thus, God made woman, not from dust, but from the side of Adam: woman, bone of man’s bone, flesh of man’s flesh, a suitable helper.  “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)  Man and woman were destined to be joined, because they were once two parts of the same whole.  I love the word “become” from the end of verse 24.  One flesh is a process in marriage, a lifelong journey, and it was for Adam and Even just as much as my wife and I today.  Man and woman are one time “joined”, but for all time “becoming” one flesh.  That word “become” is a divine promise and invitation to an eternity of growing and going deeper with another person.  In what environment was that supposed to happen?  Verse 25 tells us the answer.  “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.”  This verse is clearly referring to their physical bodies being naked, but I believe it also speaks to a larger reality.  Adam and Eve, this first man and his wife, had nothing they were hiding.  They were completely open, completely splayed for the whole world (their spouse) to see.  They were unreservedly vulnerable, and in every since of the word, naked.   And yet, the Bible says, they were not ashamed!

In the End - Marriage

This was Eden. This was perfect humanity.  It was not completed humanity, but it was flawless.  Adam and Eve, one man and one woman naked and unashamed before each other and before God.  That was God’s very good foundation for humanity, and there was absolutely nothing that could have improved upon it.  Open, naked marriage is the perfect foundation of humanity.  The world will remember that before long!  However, it is not marriage that is most fully on my heart, at least not the marriage between one man and one woman.  There is a vision for unity, God’s vision for unity in a very large sense that he has been impregnating me with over the last month or so.  I had the great honor of marrying Dylan and Debbie Svobodny last week and in the time leading up to that and since the breadth of my vision for the church has increased immensely.  God has given me some simple keys that have unlocked much of the way I understand the world and that inspire me for the future of his kingdom.  There will be a final union between a glorious bride and our glorious Lord.  We are on the journey to that union, we are in fact “becoming” one flesh with, and for Jesus Christ.  That is the church, and it is beautiful.  It is the intricacies of that reality that I want to begin tossing around on paper.

The New Sight of Sin

Do you know what happened to Adam and Eve after they ate of the forbidden fruit?  I didn’t.  Their eyes were opened!!!!  Before recently I had not realized that the Bible ever talked about eyes being opened in a negative sense.  To be blind is always the problem.  God always gives sight.  But there it is, black and white, the first thing recorded after they eat of the fruit, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.”  (Genesis 3:7)  That was the downturn of all of humanity.  Our eyes were opened.  It is interesting to see that having their eyes opened didn’t alter what they saw, it changed what they knew.  “They knew that they were naked,” they knew good and evil.  In simple terms, humanities eyes were for the first time opened to see themselves through satan’s eyes.  I believe there are two lens’ through which it is possible to view every circumstance of life: the devil’s and God’s.  Those are the only two options, and for a brief period in history there was only one option.  Adam and Eve, before their encounter with the deceiver only knew what they looked like in God’s eyes.  Through His eyes they were able to stand naked and unashamed.  That is the good news of the gospel!  It was only when their eyes were opened to how their enemy saw them that they were ashamed.  This is the pattern of the fall: deception, new sight, shame, disunity.  None of these things exist in the Kingdom of God.

Broken Unity

Let’s continue to trace out the ramifications of the fall and the shame produced from the new sight of satan.  The deceiver came and for the first time humanity knew deception.  We really should go easy on Adam and Eve because the snake was the first one to lie in Eden.  They had no knowledge of or framework to understand or even expect someone to lie.  Notice though that the liar, in his lie, got Adam and Eve to believe that God could do that thing for which they had no framework, that God could lie.  They are deceived, and immediately they fall into deception.  They see, they know they are naked, they are ashamed, and they immediately try to hide from each other.  Man and woman take their first step backward in their journey of “becoming” one flesh.  For the first time they keep a part of themselves away from each other.  New sight has effectively derailed the unity between human relationships.  Once they’ve successfully hidden themselves from each other, they hear God coming.  God’s coming and I see myself through satan’s eyes, and I know I’ve got to hide, because God should punish me, hate me, destroy me, think I’m disgusting.  The new sight now separates us from God Himself.  Unity has been broken between God and man and the introduction of the drama of human history has been set.  Disunity between God and between each other is the stage upon which all of history was played, that is until the cross.

What Jesus Did

We must understand what problems the fall created, and the present status of the redemption of those problems if we are going to successfully walk in and into the Kingdom of God.   We have established that the fall brought disunity in two realms of relationship: between man and God and man and man.  The good news of the gospel is that the first has been dealt with.  God has brought complete and perfect unity between human-beings and himself.  In fact, the Bible tells us that Christ was cruficied before the foundations of the earth, so we can know that on God’s end there never was a separation. (See Rev. 13:8)  Scripture tells us that we are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.  (See Eph. 1:20 and 2:6)  We may draw near to God with confidence because our conscious’ have been renewed and redeemed. (See Hebrews 10:19-22) Through the Love of God revealed so radically at the cross of Christ we are free from our hiding before God.  Jesus has cut off our sinful nature and made it so that we may stand pure, holy and unashamed before Him.  (See Col. 2:11 and Eph. 1:4).  God has made a covenant with His people and it is not conditional.  He will keep it.  This is what He has promised: “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord.  For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)  God always keeps His word.

I am not saying here that we no longer need to worry about people’s standing with God.  Jesus said that there would be those at the end of time to whom he would say, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:23)  There are certainly those who are not united with God on their end, but we must know that God has done His work to unite all people to Himself.  He has made all righteous through his perfect, guilt and shame- erasing sacrifice.  Remember our text from Genesis about husband and wife.  The two are first joined and then become one flesh for the rest of forever.  The same is true with relationship with God.  God as husband has proposed to the world.  Some have outright said they will not join.  Some, like myself, have been joined to Christ and are now on the eternal adventure of “becoming” one flesh with Him.  There is also a third category, and these are those to whom Jesus speaks when He says “I never knew you.”  There are those who believe themselves to have joined, but have never actually moved in the direction of becoming one flesh with God.  The scripture makes it clear that any husband and wife will be joined and “shall” become one flesh.  There is no true initial joining if it is not naturally followed by becoming.  As James says, “Faith without works is dead.”  (See James 2:17)  I have written much that is extra here, but what we must fundamentally know is that Jesus has done a once and perfect job of redeeming humanity to Himself.  He meant it when He said, “It is finished.” (See John 19:30)

The Work of the Holy Spirit

In John 17 is recorded Jesus’ prayer for all of humanity.  He prays, “that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent me.” (John 17:20)  There is debate about what exactly this prayer means, (and there are those that I respect very much that might disagree with my interpretation), but I believe Jesus is here praying for the unity of the church.  This is actually the way I had always read this prayer, and I always wished it would have said the opposite.  I always got hung up on this prayer and would ask God why he didn’t pray for us to be one with Him.  As I’ve said, some would say that that is exactly what He was praying here, but I believe he prayed for the church’s unity within itself because He was already uniting us to Himself.  I believe that through this prayer Jesus was asking for the releasing of the Holy Spirit to make all believers one.  Ephesians 1:10 defines God’s will as this, “That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him.”  I cannot ignore the similarity of the language in this statement to that of Jesus’ prayer.  Thus, I must conclude that God’s single driving desire and will presently and until the end of time is to see unity in His kingdom.  God is redeeming human relationship and that redemption will take place in what we call, “the body of Christ.”

I have learned to speak often of the work of the Holy Spirit, and have defined that in many ways.  I have talked about miracles, healings, gifts and fruits, and revealing truth.  However, I believe that I have previously missed what is the foundational work of the Holy Ghost.  More than all else the mission statement of the Holy Spirit is to bring unity in the church.  He will answer Jesus’ prayer, and His Will will be done.  The Body of Christ will be perfected in unity before the end of time.  The Holy Spirit will make sure of that.  He is at present filling me with the fullness of His vision and passion to do just that.  The Holy Spirit does indeed bring power, and shapes character, but more than all else He is at work for unity.  The trend of the world is to unity.  At the end of time every tongue and every knee will be united in proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord, but before that happens the Holy Spirit will have formed a complete and perfected body and bride of Christ. (See Phil. 2:10-11)

One Accord

It was some time ago that the Lord began to shift my understanding of the book of Acts.  About three years ago he opened my eyes to the fullness of the power and gifts of the Spirit as displayed in this wondrous book, but of late my attention has been drawn to another reality.  We talk often about the shift that took place in the followers of Jesus after the Holy Spirit came.  Jesus had basically told them not to touch anything until  “Power” came from on high. (See Acts 1:4-8)  That “Power” came in the form of the Holy Spirit on what we now know as Pentecost.  When He came, flames stood over each believer, they spoke in exotic tongues and Peter preached with great courage.  These things we know, but do we know what scripture records about the church immediately after the actual day of Pentecost?  Many, including myself, have emphasized signs and wonders, assuming that these were the most important evidences of the Spirit’s presence in the church.  It is good that we have emphasized these things, because they must be daily happenings within the body of Christ.  However, scripture emphasizes another work of the Holy Spirit in the church.  The text reads, “Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as they had need.  So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.  And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:44-47)  I cannot help but notice here that the adding of numbers to the church is not connected to signs and wonders, but rather to the quality and unity of the church community.

It was their quality of being, “one accord,” that set the church apart from the rest of the world.  When this hit me I must say I felt rather stupid.  I had always assumed that it was signs and wonders that Jesus needed them to wait for.  However, the disciples had already done many signs and wonders during the ministry of Jesus. The power they received on Pentecost wasn’t to heal the sick or cast out demons.  They received that from Jesus much earlier.  The power that I believe God released on Pentecost was a vision and a heart for the culture of the body of Christ.  The phrase “one accord” is used eleven times in the book of Acts, only appearing 6 other times throughout the rest of scripture.  Interestingly, about half of the time these words are used in Acts they are used to refer to a united enemy of the church.  Jesus carried something that either made people lay down their lives to follow him or follow Him to take down his life.  The early church had that same quality.  It was called the Holy Spirit, the Presence of God, and the culture of heaven.  The Holy Spirit came and unity happened among people.  The church became one in their passion and love for the Lord, and their enemies became one in their passion and hatred of the church.  This is where we come back to the two potential worldviews seen in Genesis.  There really are only two different sets of eyes through which to see the world, God’s or the devil’s.  When the church lives through God’s eyes, the world and the church begin to look much more unified.

Peter spoke on the day of Pentecost about the day of Pentecost using prophesy from the book of Joel.  However, that was not the only Old Testament prophesy which spoke of this day.  The prophet Zephaniah also spoke of it saying,

“For then I will restore to the people a pure language, that they all may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one accord. . . In that day you shall not be shamed for any of your deeds in which you transgress against Me; For then I will take away from your midst those who rejoice in your pride, and you shall no longer by haughty in My holy mountain.  I will leave in your midst a meek and humble people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.  The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness and speak no lies, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed their flocks and lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.” (Zeph. 3:8,10-13)

This is a picture of the Church of Christ as prophesied thousands of years ago, and unfortunately Zephaniah had greater vision for it than do most who presently walk as members of that body.  We must get the Father’s heart and vision for unity in our day.  Acts 2 is a promise to us, a brief snapshot of the power of healthy, spirit-filled community.  Remember that the fall consisted of the breaking of unity from God and from each other.  Thus Eden, heaven, the place from which we fell, is in simplest form unity with God and with each other.  That original unity is what every heart longs for, and when heaven is radically displayed in united community God will add to the body daily, and it will not be long before Christ has a perfect bride to come back for. 

The Body of Christ

Many in the church, (from my experience especially those who deny the reality of signs and wonders) have attempted to use this Acts 2 passage as a blueprint for Christian community.  As such, there is a lifting up of the idea of selling all one’s possessions, of living together in one big place and having a completely unified pot of money.  Personally, I think such a community would be pretty cool but this was never meant to be a blueprint.  Reducing it to such will simply create another religious form without any real power.  What I wish to glean from Acts 2 is the beginnings of an understanding of God’s heartbeat for unity in His church.  To delve more into what that actually looks like I want to use Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

Part of the reason that a blueprint reading of the early church won’t work is that Jesus wants a much more glorious bride than a hippy-like commune of people.  We must get  a vision for the fullness of the church.  Paul prayed that the Ephesians would know, “what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” (Ephesians 1:18)  We, as the church, are God’s glorious inheritance.  Remember, we are (or rather will be) the perfect bride who will be wed to Jesus. (See Rev. 19) We are, “His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all,” and as that body, “He (God) has put all things under His (our) feet.” (See Ephesians 1:22-23)  There is a destination set before us here, one which Paul best describes saying, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13)  I would encourage you to simply meditate on these realities for a while.  I have been meditating on them for weeks and months and am just beginning to scratch the surface of the treasure inside.  There is a call up here that is being screamed from heaven.  Paul’s call is mine (and all of ours): “that I should preach . . .the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places . . .” (Ephesians 2:8-10)  This goes on, but basically I and we as the church are called to seek out and proclaim the mysteries of God in order that we might make them known to principalities and powers.  In other words, the angels ached to know the deep things of God, and God has given us the office of experiencing and communicating those deep things to them.  That is huge and humbling!

Church Leadership

One of the clearest disfunctions and clearest manifestations of disunity in the church today is its leadership.  I could talk about this subject for pages, but there are a few central truths I want to mull over.  First of all, the church is to be built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. (Ephesians 2:20)  This means several things to us, including that we must make efforts to understand those offices more fully.  I personally believe that apostles and prophets are those responsible for having heavens vision, and for speaking that vision as a broad vision for the church.  It is in fact an apostolic vision for unity that I believe the Lord is birthing in me.  The beautiful thing about Paul’s description of these two offices is that he calls them the foundation.  The leaders of the church are supposed to be the solid stones upon which everyone else can build higher.  Apostles and prophets are to lay blueprints for the kingdom and empower the church to build itself.  Church leadership was never meant to be about funny, charismatic speakers wearing the cap of spiritual elite above all others.  Most of our churches are run by evangelists and because of that we have houses full of infants and are failing to disciple nations. 

Paul further depicts the system of church leadership in Ephesians 4:11-16 saying,

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

If Ephesians is the most holistic depiction of the body of Christ in scripture than these six verses may be the most holistic depiction within Ephesians.  What is written above is an Apostolic invitation to what God would like to release in His church.  Paul emphasizes that these offices are for the equipping of the saints for the ministry.  Those individuals who fill the five-fold ministry certainly minister to the saints, but it is those saints who actually carry out the major-ministry of the body.  This empowering and releasing system is necessary Paul makes clear if we are going to see the church reach its fullness, which remember God will see happen.  The church is growing into a perfect man, into the stature of the fullness of Christ, but it is only doing so as every part does its share. 

The illustrative picture Paul paints to help us understand is of a body, the Body of Christ.  He divides this body into two parts – the offices and the saints, or the joints and the parts.  The joints I believe correspond to leadership, to those in the specific offices and their function is to join and knit the body together.  The function of the five-fold leadership is simply toward unity.  It is then those parts which the joints hold together that cause the body to grow.  The focus of leadership must be the health of the body, the vision of the body, edifying the body with the vision of heaven.  The body then will naturally take care of itself, grow and thrive as bodies to when they are healthy.  And how glorious this body yet will be!

Staying Within the Walls

I must start this paragraph by clarifying that I don’t exactly believe my title to this section.  However, there is an immense move in the church at present with the slogan, “outside the church walls!”  This is beautiful and good and necessary, but in most places very incomplete.  Much of the church, much of the body is being told that church is not about church, but about getting those outside.  However, those same people being told that are being kept in positions of immaturity and childishness within the church.  The primary reason for this is that we do not have apostles and prophets at the foundation of our churches.  Apostles and prophets are those that ensure the heavenly nature of the church as I’ve said.  As such it is their responsibility to give the church vision for what it is supposed to be.  I want to make the case here that going out and winning lost souls is not God’s plan for evangelism.  It is good, and has its place, and the gospel should be carried with us, our feet ready always to take that good news.(See Ephesians 6)  However, preaching to the lost, and getting people, “saved” is not God’s strategy.  Does God want all people to come into His Kingdom?  Absolutely!  However, he is also waiting for a glorious bride.  Much of the church is welcoming members into a bride that is much less than glorious.  We have systems of becoming culturally relevant and seeker friendly in order to get the lost ones.  The problem with this is that all the while we cripple the very bride Christ is waiting for. 

There are certainly places in scripture that instruct the church how to interact with and love those outside the fold.  However, the entire book of Ephesians and the majority of all instruction is actually with regards to how we ought to love each other, the culture and community that should be formed within the body itself.   Biblical vision is more for the fullness of the bride than it is how to talk with the stranger on the bus.  Talking to strangers on a bus is important, but it is much harder to get sick people to do what healthy people will naturally than it is to make people healthy and watch them live from that health.  We have gotten our focus backwards.  Remember the early church as depicted in Acts.  The Bible describes how healthy that community was and then explains that God added to their number daily.  The early church didn’t need slick slogans, or smooth-talking street evangelists.  What they had was so much of heaven that people couldn’t wait to get in.  I want vision for that kind of community.  God is raising up men and women to carry that vision and to equip the saints with it.  Unity will be brought in the body and we will grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ.  Bill Johnson, the man I consider to be my biggest role model, has a quote he says often, “Everyone wants a king like Jesus, if his body looked like Him they would want His body too.”  I believe that with all my heart.  I have a heart for the lost, but I don’t want to welcome them into a lost and confused church.  My heart for the lost drives me back into the four walls, to see a culture of heaven released in the church that would simply cause the lost to come home!

Away with Deceit

There are many biblical themes with regard to character and characteristics in the church.  These include humility, encouragement, and forgiveness, but the one that is most intriguing to me right now is that of deceit and lying.  Time and time again the bible speaks against these things, which makes since, but the repetition of it is huge, and the importance of it is becoming more and more apparent to me.  Ephesians 4:25 reads, “Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another.”  That reason for not lying is incredibly important.  We are members of one another, we are one, we are united.  How can two things that are united lie to each other?  How can they have secrets, or hidden garbage?  The answer is that they can’t.  It was deception that the deceiver brought into the garden, and it was only that deception that made disunity possible.  People that are naked and unashamed before each other are by nature completely united, they are completely open with each other.  Any form of deception and hiddenness within ourselves is direct residue of the fall.   It stems from the vision of satan that says, “if you let that be seen, they will think you garbage.”  It is directly linked to shame and thus necessarily must be eradicated in the unified church.  Remember Zephaniah’s prophesy about a church that would know no shame.  That is a church without any lying, any deception, or any insecurity.  It is a vision of a church that is completely vulnerable within itself.  Another man that I respect very greatly, Todd White, makes a statement that has had a great impact on me lately.  He says, “You cannot hurt me, because I will hurt for you.”  He speaks about the fullness of the revelation of his own death with Christ and his subsequent new life in him.  He has no junk in his trunk or nakedness he would be ashamed of because that all perished with Christ on the cross.  As crucified and resurrected people we have absolutely nothing to be afraid of, no thing to hide.  We are free to be naked and unashamed!

Unity will come with Family

I do not believe it a coincidence that satan has so strongly attacked family in these last days.  Divorce rates are the highest ever, and most of our society has no idea what family is actually supposed to look like, including the church.  I believe with all my heart that God is giving the church a revelation of family, and of church as family that will bring the Kingdom of Heaven in its fullness.  I believe God is raising up men and women who will be mothers and fathers to an orphaned world, and orphans will come streaming into the church because they need mommies and daddies.  The church is the body and bride of Christ, but it is also to be a family.   Our God calls Himself Father, and calls us children.  He has set marriage up as the parallel of His relationship with the church.  God’s vision for the world is family.  The fullness of what I want to say here is also another multi-page thesis, but my heart is beginning to beat so fully for family community that I cannot contain it.  God spoke to me early one morning over a year ago now and said these words to me as an invitation, “Seek my Father heart.”  That is my life search and my life hunger now.  I want his heart to be seen through me and through the church.  God started the wooing of his bride with one father named Abram, and one family from his line.  It is families that will continue that growth, and the church as a family. 

There is an innate covenantal relationship within families.  Even incredibly broken families have a deep-rooted love for each other, a commitment to each other that is durable and unshakeable.  There are many people with whom I share much more in common and who I do more life with, but there is a loyalty that I carry towards my family that won’t be broken.  It is this covenantal, familial relationship that God wants to release in the church.  Since the beginning members of the church of Christ have called each other brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers.  However, the power of those titles has most often been lost.  Fathers and mothers have an innate heart to see their children succeed.  It is easy to champion your children, to live so as to make your ceiling their floor.  It is also easy for brothers and sisters to make sacrifices for each other, to champion each others dreams.  The roots of family run deep in the hearts of people, and no matter how frail family may look in our day there is a strong, hearty family tree that is ready to sprout.  It is the tree that those roots were meant to support, and the unified tree that will call God their Daddy, their Abba, and Jesus will be its Head.

“For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, that they may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one accord.  In that day you shall not be shamed for any of your deeds in which you transgress against Me; For then I will take away from your midst those who rejoice in your pride, and you shall no longer be haughty in My holy mountain.  I will leave in your midst a meek and humble people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.  The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness and speak no lies, Nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed their flocks and lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.”

Soon, and very Soon!