Jesus Went Ahead For Us
Christian culture can make us comfortable and affect our ability to reach people who don’t know Christ. And often we have to be willing to leave our comfortable subculture behind to share the gospel with the people who need it the most. But the good news is we don’t have to go there alone. There is someone there who has gone before us and made the sacrifices we’re talking about. His name is Jesus.
If you think about it, Jesus had the best set up in existence. Before becoming a human He existed in communion with the Father in a way no man since Adam had ever tasted. There was no pain there. No difficulty. Perfect fellowship. There was peace and joy and goodness constantly surrounding him.
But He loved us.
And because He loved us and because it was the Father’s will Jesus left Heaven and endured a world that undoubtedly was harder than the one He left. Pain was there. Heartache ran rampant. He would hunger for the first time. He would be tempted for the first time. He would become the only just man who had to endure suffering. Most important of all, He would leave the immediate fellowship with the Father and submit to living life like we do.
Paul says:
Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
and John, speaking about Jesus coming to Earth says:
The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
John 1:14, The Message
And He did it all out of love.
But Paul (and I’m sure John) tells us these details about Jesus’ life for a reason. Just before Paul begins to tell the Philippians about Jesus renouncing His privileges, he says this:
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Paul’s point in telling the story is that we’re supposed to be inspired to do what Jesus did. He left aside the privilege of fellowship with God. He laid aside all the rights of Godhead. He didn’t count equality with God as something to be held onto at the expense of us. Instead He became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
And we’re supposed to do the same. Out of great love and humility and servant-heartedness, we will need to lay down some of the “joys” we have as Christians in order to participate with the mission of God. Just like Jesus had to leave the comforts of home to win the hearts of people who didn’t know their need, so do we. He has gone before us, has been the example to encourage us, and now calls us to join Him outside the camp.
Will it be easy?
No.
Is it always fun?
No.
But Scripture tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus so that we don’t grow weary and give up. And if leaving the comfort of the Christian circle you’ve found yourself in is hard, then fix your eyes on Jesus who did it first. He is both our motivation and example.
Will you join Him there?
Leaving the Comfort of Home
Yesterday I was asked to share about our house churches’ approach to mission with some leaders at a local congregation here in my city. And this opportunity has had me mulling over what has helped us as we’ve followed Jesus into the harvest.
But one of the ideas that I’m having trouble shaking is the idea of how comfortable a Christian subculture can be. It’s a common thing–I’ve seen it in my life and the lives of others–that when we give our lives to Christ we often also join a church. And each church often desires to draw us into its influence–sometimes for good and sometimes for poor reasons.
Whether it was for good reasons or bad reasons, this can have the effect of limiting our influence among the lost. We can spend time building relationships, practicing disciplines, and enjoying the benefits of being the church…and all of these things are good in their place. But all of this can also steal us away from spending time with those who need us the most–the lost.
I’ve also seen believers in the pursuit of holiness and closeness to Jesus pull away from the world. They want purity and distance from temptation–and again, this is good. However, we can develop our own little Christian ghettos–places so secluded from the world–that we become judgemental toward the sin of the world. We aren’t able to lovingly interact with a world that is just as lost as we were. In fact, we look down on it.
Enjoying relationships and pursuing holiness aren’t bad things in the right context. But we have to be willing to “leave the comforts of home” so to speak. We have to be willing to forsake the benefits of Christian culture in order to reach a non-Christian one. All cross-cultural missionaries know the pain and power of this vital step. As part of a church you love, you have greatly benefited. But because of the call of Jesus to a particular mission field, you have to leave the church that you’ve benefited from in order to start a church where there is none.
I believe God is calling more than just a handful of people to cross the ocean and live out this reality. Instead, God is calling His entire church to take on the identity of a missionary and that will mean having to leave the culture of Western Christianity and crossing into the worlds of the inner city, the business world, and even suburban soccer moms. Not all of us will cross oceans, but all of us can re-arrange our schedules, change how we spend money, and change how we relate to the unsaved.
There’s nothing wrong with home. It’s just that unbelievers don’t live there. The world by and large has stopped coming to our doors for answers. And the ones who truly, really need the gospel certainly aren’t swinging by for another meeting. So you’ll have to go to them and get used to living near them. But take heart, you’re in good company. God has already gone ahead of you.
More on that tomorrow…
Developing a Missional Identity
One of the most misunderstood and undervalued truths of following Jesus is the importance of understanding our identity in Christ. When you repented of your sin and believed in Jesus, you weren’t just forgiven, you were given a new identity that completely replaces how you saw yourself and how the world labeled you. This shift that happens at the moment of our surrender is so incredibly powerful that many of us spend the rest of our lives trying to fully comprehend it.
Son. Sheep. Bride. Brother. Many times these identities are studied within the body. We emphasize the idea that these are identities that exist because we are “in Christ.” They’re not based on what we do. They’re real because Jesus invaded our life.
The truth is, when we begin to see ourselves as one of these identities, we begin to live differently. How we believe God sees us and how we see ourselves is fundamental in changing how we live. If we believe we are delighted in by God as a Father delights in His son or daughter, it will increase the amount of joy we walk in as the people of God. Knowing and believing our God-given identity has the power to flip the script that we’ve been reading over our lives. It’s powerful.
Missional Identity
God spends so much time in Scripture telling us who we are that there are multiple identities he gives us. Each one of these identities can be received without working for them but have a corresponding reality to walk out. For example, God calls us His sons. And for us that means that we are loved by God and have become part of His family. To be an accepted son of God that is loved by Him is life transforming. But when we accept and begin to walk in that reality it changes us. Well-matured sonship means growing up and becoming fathers ourselves. We get to live as loved mature sons who walk in the authority and inheritance of our Father.
So while there are many of identities out there for us to get our hearts and heads around, one of the identities that we focus on very little is the missional identity God gives us. Paul says this:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
-2 Corinthians 5:17-20
Notice a couple of things:
- This isn’t the identity of only the Paul and his apostolic team, though they surely operated out of this reality to a great degree. This missional identity starts as an outgrowth of being in Christ. It’s part of the “new” that has come. If Christ has reconciled us to Himself, then He has also given us the ministry of reconciliation.
- This whole identity centers around knowing that we have been completely reconciled to God. Let that sink in for a moment, because I fear many of us don’t operate out of this identity because we feel we are only partially reconciled to Him. You aren’t just a struggling sinner that God has mercifully let in to sit in the back of the room. You are God’s beloved child who He’s made the righteousness of God in Christ. Jesus has not counted our past trespasses against us and He has entrusted to us the message of God’s reconciling act in Jesus.
- Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ and God makes His appeal through us. This missional identity is one of ambassadorship. We are constantly speaking on behalf of God to lost and dying humanity for them to be reconciled to God through Christ. Believing by faith that this is who we are will open up power and effectiveness for us as we step out.
Many of us miss out on more effectiveness in the realm of sharing our faith and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit because we don’t believe we are truly God’s ambassadors. I know this is an area I’ve personally struggled with. But I’m seeing again in my life and the life of our churches here, the more we believe this reality is true, the more we walk it out in our daily lives.
Just like any of our other identities, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to renew our mind and fill it with the truth we see in God’s word. As our minds are renewed and we accept this identity and role that God gives us, we will mature in it. Not everyone will be a missionary, apostle, or evangelist, but all of us can participate in the service of being a voice for the world to be reconciled to God in Christ.
Do you believe you are Christ’s ambassador? If not, what’s stopping you?
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 