Life in Christ
Notes
Transcript
Abundant Life Sermon Series
Story of the Horse and his Boy
It’s no big surprise, I’m a huge fan of C.S. Lewis - just reread one of his books from the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Horse and His Boy (which, you should note is not The Boy and His Horse)
It’s story of young man, Shasta, who lives along the sea in land of Calormen.
Shasta lives with a man, a fisherman, he calls “Father” - but he doesn’t have great affection for his Father, who treats him more like a servant, a slave rather than a son. We learn that Shasta is not his actual child - the fisherman found him when he washed up on shore in a row boat as an infant.
Visitor comes, a Calormen nobleman, who wants to purchase Shasta as slave. As they’re negotiating price, Shasta wanders off to look at nobleman’s horse. He discovers horse can talk - because the horse, Bree, is from Narnia!
Together they hatch plan to escape and run away to Narnia. The book is the series of adventures they experience on their journey towards Narnia.
At the very end of the story, Shasta discovers that his real name is actually Cor. And that he is actually long lost son of King Lune, king of Archenland.
In matter of weeks Shasta - Cor - goes from being a pitiable slave to son of King, a prince.
And with that, all wondrous advantages of being part of the royal family of a wonderful Kingdom - clothes (he’s never owned shoes before), good food, all sorts of new experiences - learning to hunt, wield a sword, visiting other royalty.
But not just wondrous advantages, but grave responsibilities. As his Father the King tells him, “This is what it means to be king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land to wear fine clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”
Lewis’ book is an image of journey of “life in Christ”
When Shasta discovers his true identity, everything changes for him - everything
New name, new relationships, new identity - whole new way of life. It’s captures what it means to be a Christian, a little Christ.
We’ve been talking in this series about abundant life - the fullness of life Jesus came to give us.
Discipleship is process of moving into abundant life that Jesus offers - that’s what I want to dig into this morning.
Jeff Vanderstelt, pastor of the Soma church in Tacoma, describes discipleship as the “ongoing process of submitting all of life to Jesus, and seeing him saturate your entire life and world with his presence and power.”
It’s a great definition.
Prayer / Scripture - Galatians 2:19-21
Life I Now Live
When I was serving as youth minister at St. Thomas Presbyterian Church, I had the responsibility of co-teaching Confirmation Class with the Director of Christian Education.
Working our way through the affirmations and vows that are typically made at confirmation, one of which is the question of trusting in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. So I asked question, “What does it mean to profess ‘Jesus as Lord’?”
One of students answered by just repeating it. It means he’s Lord. So, I asked question again. Yeah, but what does that mean? Again, he answered, It means, he’s Lord. Conversation went nowhere.
In hindsight, I should have asked it in different way, tease it out a bit…because what I really wanted to see was if they could answer what that looks like in our every day lives, to profess Jesus as Lord. How is that conviction actually lived out, how does it make our lives different if we trust that Jesus is Lord?
That response of that young man is not uncommon. I think there are a lot of things we say in church that we don’t really know what to do with. We don’t really know what to make of it. Our passage today has been one of those for me.
I love idea, it sounds really good - but what does it mean (really mean) to say “I’ve been crucified with Christ. I no longer live.” What does that mean? I’m clearly not dead. I’m alive.
And what about “Christ lives in me”? What does that mean?
What does it mean to take this seriously? To hear this as something that isn’t just for Paul, but true for you and me? To see yourself as actually having been crucified with Christ, no longer living? To live with knowledge of Christ living in me? What difference would it make in our lives to take these words to heart and live this out? That’s what we want to dig into this morning. Because our goal is to hear the words of Jesus and put them into practice.
So, that’s what we want to do this morning - is to hear these words, get a better understanding of what they really mean.
And then talk about what it looks like to put them into practice, to live them out.
Saturate
Jeff Vanderstelt gives us language that I think is helpful here - idea of saturation. That we are to be saturated with Jesus.
Most of you probably remember the old Bounty paper towels commercials, tagline, “quicker picker upper.” Idea was that Bounty would quickly soak liquid up. Of course, when a paper towel soaks water (or coffee or whatever), it is then saturated with that liquid. Filled up.
In same way, we are to be saturated with Jesus, as Vanderstelt says, to have Jesus saturate our entire lives with his presence and power.
This was case with Shasta - or, Cor. Whose life was now saturated with his new royal identity. That’s who he is now, prince. This is life he will now live.
In order to do that, had to give up the only way of life he’d ever known - life of a slave. He has to move out of all that.
He was to be willing to be led into whole new way of life - after all, he has no idea how to live life of King. It’s utterly foreign to him. At one point in time in story, he’s supposed to bow, but it’s awkward and clumsy when he tries it.
This is essentially what Paul is saying when he’s using language such as “I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live.”
Whole sense of dying to previous way of life. Cor had to die to Shasta way of being. If my life is saturated with another way of being, I can’t be saturated with Jesus. That old way of being has to be wrung out first.
Growth in life of Jesus always involves dying. Always. It is ongoing process of submitting all of my life to Jesus.
Submission is sort of death. To submit all of my life is to come to Jesus with a willingness to let go of anything and everything.
Letting go of control. Of my attachments. To what I think may be right.
We are not simply adding Jesus to our lives, as an addition. We are to center our lives on him.
Why it’s never Jesus and the American dream, Jesus and nationalism. I recently read a book about talked about World War I - fascinating part of why war got started had to do with Christianity and nationalism -on both sides! For English & French and the Germans. Jesus and social justice causes.
Jesus is not addition. He’s whole thing. We don’t add him into house already constructed. We invite Jesus in to do complete remodel, which may require stripping it down to studs.
Listen to way Oswald Chambers describes it in one of the devotionals from his book, “My Utmost for His Highest”
“It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child - a relationship simply between God and our souls, and where other people are but shadows.”
Chambers isn’t saying that people shouldn’t exist to us (just shadows), but simply in contrast to our focus and connection to God. That I’m so directed toward him, everything else is shadow (similar to what we sing every Sunday as end of worship…turn your eyes upon Jesus…and things of earth will become strangely dim.
He describes our relationship with God as that of child and parent - just like parent is center of child’s world - they look to them to provide for all their needs, if they are hurt or crying or scared or have something they’re proud of, that’s whom they go to. Child looks to parent, watching and learning from them all the time - what parents teach us becomes deeply imprinted upon who we are.
But first, we must unlearn. Let go. Detach, Be crucified before we can have a relationship with Jesus that is (I love way he describes this) simply between God and our souls. Great way to describe Christ living in us.
That’s other half of equation, this is what Paul is talking about - I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I unlearn, I let go, I die to all this, so I can into live in abundant life Jesus came to give us. This is essence of discipleship.
Vanderstelt: It is walking with Jesus, being filled with Jesus, and being led by Jesus in every place and in every way.
I love way Henri Nouwen describes discipleship. Disciples are “people who are so deeply in love with Jesus that they are ready to follow him wherever he guides them, always trusting that, with him, they will find life and find it abundantly.”
I hope you’re getting a sense of what Paul is describing here (you’re hearing it), what discipleship is, Christ living in us. In our remaining time, I want to spend some time talking about what this looks like in our lives. How do we put it into practice, how is this lived out, day to day?
All of Life Discipleship - Putting It into Practice
As I was reflecting on Paul’s words in this passage, it struck me as odd how Paul describes what life looks for him now, about Christ living in him. He says: The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
It’s strange, isn’t it? Life I live in body. What other life is there? There’s no life outside of the body.
I think Paul is trying to get sense of saying that this isn’t just in our minds. Being Christian is not just set of ideas. It’s not list of things I’m supposed to believe, affirm as true.
I think Paul is saying that this is lived reality. I can know and experience Jesus living in me. I can be saturated with Jesus in this body. That Jesus is risen, alive, and he’s here, within me, in actuality, his presence and power. These words mean what they say.
This is where we put it into practice, because to be disciple is to live my day to day life trusting that’s true.
Since there’s nothing I don’t do in my body, discipleship involves every single aspect of my life, it is, Vanderstelt describes it, an all of life discipleship.
Let me offer some examples
Dallas Willard has a book called, “Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God.”
Think about implications of that, what he addresses in book - it assumes that God really does speak in a way that we can hear him.
The life we live in our bodies, we live trusting that Jesus speaks with me. That he desires a genuine friendship with us, and like all good friendships, he speaks. And he listens.
So when I pick up my Bible, I’m not simply reading a book that tells me about God, I’m sitting down to live out the conversational relationship I have with God. That Jesus and I can spend time together as friends - like any friendship, he speaks and I listen. I speak and he listens. And because he’s perfect in wisdom and love, it’s far better for me to spend more time listening than speaking.
I came across this recently, I think it describes putting this into practice perfectly.
It’s prayer of Unknown Confederate soldier:
I asked God for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak that I might learn to obey.
I asked for health that I might do great things; I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power when I was young that I might have the praise of men; I was given weakness that I might feel need for God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all people, most richly blessed.
Note how this process of being crucified with Christ, of unlearning - and then moving into life with Christ permeates this whole prayer. In every aspect of life, all things we experience in life we live in our bodies.
One of my favorites - I asked for all things that I might enjoy life, I was given life that I might enjoy things.
We love stuff. We want good things, because we think that it’s in those things that we find life.
But Christ living in me means I have source of life, one who gives abundant life living in me.
One of Spiritual Disciplines is simplicity, less is more. I let go of things, my attachment to them. Unlearn our cultural’s obsession with stuff.
Way of putting into practice that Jesus is life, trusting that. When we lose our attachment to stuff, we really are freed to enjoy things without having to have them, own them.
I prayed for health - who doesn’t want to be healthy? To feel good? No pain or discomfort.
But I’m willing to unlearn. I no longer live. I look to Jesus for life - he loves me, he gave himself for me.
And so as I’m given infirmity, I trust that Jesus can use even this, use this to do better things (compassion, to learn my limitations, to learn “loss”)
In Emotionally Healthy Spirituality class I’m taking, one of the men in my small group, a pastor in California, is blind.
It’s been humbling to hear him share about his struggles with losing his sight, enduring loss and grief and comes with that…things you wouldn’t consider
the sudden death of his guide dog
Funeral of his mother, not being able to share in slide show
But he can see where God has used this infirmity - as pastor, he does counseling. He’s learned to listen. Really listen. He’s got wonderful gift of thoughtful encouragement, beautiful humility.
All things we experience being embodied creatures…weakness, our emotions, sexuality - become places where I can unlearn things I need to, in order to move into this relationship that is simply between God and our souls. That I can know Christ living in me.
I know I keep hammering this point, but simply because I know it’s true - but I do hope you’ll join us in our Spiritual Formation groups. What I’ve been talking about this morning, we’re going to learn how to do just that.
As Vanderstelt says, “ongoing process of submitting all of life to Jesus, and seeing him saturate your entire life and world with his presence and power.” Wouldn’t that be amazing, to be saturated with Jesus?