The lifting of humanity : Our calling and delight.
1) OUR STORY:
We live in a sub-human world. The story across our globe is the same, whether war in Ukraine, crime in Cape Town, perversion by high profilers, or greedy destruction by government. The majesty of creation and the application of the created order is a distant and veiled memory for our cosmos. As we stand on the station platform, or witness the fallout of arguments at the checkout, read the rising crime figures and fullness of prisons, or view the grumpiness, dysfunction and chaos of society generally … it is easy to forget that this is not always as it was. That resignation to view or world as irredeemable would be catastrophic. When all of humanity assumes that this is the best we can do, the apathy to live self centeredly, with a passion for self absorption, self providence, and self preservation compounds the brokenness of humanity and our world as a whole. Without God we live in a hopeless world, but we are not either without him or hope because of Him. The gospel is not a pattern or system for society, it is God himself who came into our mess and redeemed it Himself, by His blood and in his love. His work complete we now witness the cosmological implications of it in our lives, through our obedience and for all peoples.
THE GOOD GOD AND A GOOD BEGINNING:
The complex symphony of the created order reminds us that humanity is exalted to reflect the glory of God, in a uniquely relational and multidimensional way. In symphonic terms... humanity takes the conductor's soaring lead, the dominating melody and main theme being not only the focal point of the entire work but revealing more of the heart behind the masterpiece. Yet even though created humanity was to be a group of virtuoso soloists, we are still under the control, orchestration, composition and interpretational expression of the conductor (Gen 1:26-2:17). This is the only reason that we are able to work well with each other, in creation or recreation. Our greatest role and impact is under his leadership. This role is nor passive, it requires discipline and practice. In many ways this is where the analogy ends. Part of our great role in creation for example is our role of influence, the order to take care of all else that God has made and orchestrated, including all those whom God has made to display his image. In that sense we are like a sub-conductor or orchestra leader. The old fashioned word is that we are made to be God’s “vice-regents” over creation, representative moderators of the zone in which we are placed to rule in the way that emulates the ultimate and altogether good ruler of love and provision. However that zone is so much bigger than we can understand, and there is no greater and bigger purpose than living for God.
Part of the profound tragedy of the fall is that our relationship with society is broken in our rebellion against God. In the analogy we function more as a spoilt child who doesn't practice and sees no point to the Stradivarius in our hands.The greatest and greater catastrophe of course under God is immeasurably more tragic. Humanity has become disconnected with the very one who loves us and orders all things well for our good and his glory, both in our lives and throughout society. The world is full of dissonance and pain, each doing fit in our own eyes, each in competition and friction with others according to our non complimentary passions and priorities.
However complex both creation and the fall of humanity is - creation has a simple biblical summary, and basic purpose in God’s plan.. “it is good”. At least it was before our rebellion. Even the smallest child and least educated of society can "get" what this means, yet comprehension is not the issue, inspiration and recreation is. The same is true for you and I in our lives today as we follow Christ, we are created for good. (Ephesians 2:10, Matthew 5;16-18). However, His purposes in us are on an unfathomably higher plane and bigger scale for our world. We are destined in His purposes to be “very good”. The miracle of redemption is that the conductor is with us in our world showing us, equipping us to put the symphony right. I guess the question you and I need to ask ourselves is… do we understand our redemptive calling and our we living up to it by His help ? Is your multidimensional life visibly good for society and the culture where you live? Is your life making a beautiful noise in a dissonant world?
2) OUR CALLING:
THE SUCCESS OF CHRIST'S REDEMPTION IMPACTS OUR WHOLE LIVES,
Our dedication and discipline to moral and RELATIONAL PURITY
Our COMPLETE ROUTINE,
Our PRIMARY PURPOSE IN EVERY RELATIONSHIP AND
Our TOTAL PURPOSE FOR EVERY PART OF LIFE.
Philippians 2:15
"that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world"
(see also Matt 5:13-16)
Are you up for this?
The majesty of Christ’s redemptive and completed work means that if you and I are reconnected with the Living God, restored to the place of relationship with Him whereby his presence (by the precious gift of His Spirit upon and working in and through his children) enables us to be redeemed in our relational and social roles. The ramifications of this are as wide as the cosmos and as profoundly beautiful. Whilst you and I might begin to grasp how big God is through the lens of creation, we haven't begun to fathom the magnitude of his character, work and accomplishment through new creation. (1 Cor 2:9. Hebrews 1:2-3, Col 1:15-23, Rev 21:1-7). Neither have we really begun to understand what HE can do through us if we were unreservedly compliant with his extensive work of redemption in our character, lives and witness.
However, (and please forgive me, I am trying to be gently honest) from my humble / open perspective this seems to be rarely discussed in sermons, small groups and relatively few spiritual leaders seem to prioritise or be intentional about the the primacy to prepare God’s people for works of (this wider) service in a broken society in order to glorify God on this majestic missional scale, and see his name glorified in all the earth. We seem in contemporary Christianity to be much more dominated by the other part of the Westminster Confession - to "enjoy God forever", without realising that one of the greatest ways and integral means of doing that is to see His transformation of the nations. We tend to train pastors and read Ephesians 4 as pastors with a view of equipping for the good of the church where God has placed us. I think this is an unintentional reading and unconsidered emphasis. It's certainly far from the context of what Ephesians is about. A desire to be conscientious for redemption in our own context, unwillingly can see the world through a selfishness lens of grace, to see God's purposes only in our microcosmic context, and fall into the error of only seeing the local church as a vehicle for self service, minimising Christ's redemptive purposes and practices in our minds, hearts, and lives. (isa 59:1) (John 3:16) (Psalm 107:2-3)
Ephesians however has God’s cosmological view in mind, dare I say... His purposes are considerably higher and more profound than the locality and wellbeing of any of our insular local church situations. He is opening our lives to live for something much bigger, greater and altogether more glorious. Our lives are to display His glory. This is not only for our culture and people, but all cultures and all peoples. He is Lord over all, all history, all generations and all peoples whether they acknowledge it or not. His Lordship is greater than the limitations of our experiences, circumstances and dreams even for the gospel.
I am sure that I have been very much party and contributor to this cultural problem and issue of limited vision. We may see our lives as "missional", but how wide is that missional vision? This needs to be something we grow in as we mature in Christ. The predominance of our gatherings together and our ambitions for them sadly gravitate often towards localised encouragement, praise and fellowship… dare I say we see them often as there to meet the needs of his people and celebrate his work of redemption here and now. The church are those whom we love with his love, but His church is not defined by our love. His love is not confined either by our understanding or our desires to do good to those we like. He loved us before we reciprocated his love goes beyond boundaries, and his love is not defined nor confined by us. We often forget that the primary calling of our lives is not to feel good, safe or provided for, but to be the expression of God’s goodness to a broken world as we stand in the gap in the name of Christ, to take his goodness to where it is not. This is so much bigger than we realise and we need His help to even begin to see His glory and purposes. Our corporate gatherings should reflect this wider view.
However much we grow to display and enjoy His goodness it is to be a testimony to His greater goodness. However much we grow in the knowledge of Him, it is only in order to magnify and radiate his greater glory. Our primary role is to do this in a broken context which does not yet reflect or see such.
In short we are to be at least to be a significant way in which the world comprehends the goodness of God through us. Our success or failure has profound consequence. The focus of the church matters. If we are not a missional church, can we define ourselves as a church at all? This is the core DNA of what the true church of Christ is, a people of redemption, focussed on the spread of redemption for his glory.
Are our churches so fragile that missional training and the hard work of apologetic preparation (and biblical instruction) for engagement with society would be a step too far for our characters or capacity? Are we perpetuating the cultures that we have signed up for, even if they are self serving and self centred with the goodness of God? Can we ever be a blessing when we only give a begrudging nod to the missional without the primacy of our practical and objective purpose as his redeemed people on earth ? Can we ever get the local expression of God’s people to a good place when they and we are on a trajectory which is continually distancing itself from the primacy of God's global mission and His redemptive purposes for every culture and all peoples?
The truth is that we all get into a limited zone of thinking which equates redemptive living with church, (singing, thanksgiving, belonging) and all the beauties of the new community we have been drawn to by His undeserved grace. However, we are still this side of heaven, and we see with fallen eyes. Part of the truth is that the new community displays still many elements of fallenness and selfishness. Even more profoundly, the majority of our lives are actually lived amongst those who are not part of the new community. 80% of our time may not be lived in church or believing society, and even if we could spend (or chose to live) the majority of lives with those living under the Lordship of Jesus, would this be appropriate as an intentional lifestyle ?
Why has God in his redemptive purposes not transported us immediately to everlasting glorification at the moment of our repentant confession? Is it not that God’s greatest work and his ongoing work of redemption is shown and displayed in our lives now, as we live for him amongst unredeemed and broken lives, and impact them as a mirror and mouthpiece of Christ himself. The character and love of Christ is our world’s greatest need. This need pervades around our small lives now, and is even more apparent when we look outside our local context motivated by grace. It matters how we see our world and look into the lives and eyes of those we rub shoulders with each day.
3) OUR DELIGHT:
He has placed you and I to be what our world needs in His purposes. We are not the saviour or Messiah, but we have been placed to be his ambassadors and point to him, in offices where we are the only Christian, the school where we are the only parent with a bible worldview, the unreached frontier country where 0.00% know Christ. What then is our priority? To live for him as an obedient and overflowing expression of thankfulness to Him and a ubiquitous expression of redemption to others.
WHAT IS OUR FIRST STEP IN REDEMPTIVE LIVING ?
A) Lifting of humanity starts on the path of humility: (Phil 2)
Before we were lifted with Christ He had to go lower for us than we can understand. Philippians 2 reminds us that this is the order of redemption and the path we follow. The first step towards ministering to others is always taking a step away from our pride, and being willing to submit, both to God's will to love others like Christ, and engage holistically with the lives of others who are stuck in the spiritual pit. We can never see ourselves as above this ministry, we never graduate from pit ministry at the coalface, it is always our primary calling and first step of obedience if our lives are shaped by the life of Christ. We will never pay the cost that Christ paid in full, either for Sin or Suffering, He is victorious over both. What we are called to do is be willing to engage with the sin and suffering of others in order that they might see Christ as the answer to both.
Whilst you and I think we are something ("special") or confuse our spiritual resurrection with Christ as a position of societal superiority, we are of no redemptive purpose. We are as the great preacher said, always" spiritual beggars showing others where we have found food". Pride in children of God is an anathema. Being clothed in grace does not stop us going to those living in spiritual poverty, it fills us with motivation for others to know the same.
He knows the worst about us but loves us anyway. This is the foundation for our intentional engagement with others in humility. We point to the fact that we think and transparently know, that we are nothing special. In fact without God’s work in our lives (both in creation and new creation) we would show no glory. This impacts the way we talk about our lives, what we are proud of, what we say of our families and children, our satisfaction in work and achievements. All of it has been His goodness and we want others to know his kindness in the same way, and we are flexible to go anywhere for that to be so. One thing we should never do us live a life of isolated forgetfulness of how much he has done for us.
Psalm 103
B) Have eyes to see those He can lift, and the extent of His grace. Don't be selfish with grace. (Matthew 9:36)
( 1 Kings 22:17, Ezekiel 34:5, Zech 10:2)
THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF PEOPLE AND SITUATIONS THAT NEED LIFTING:
One of the profound things I’ve witnessed over the last two years especially is the amount of society and the world which has neither heard nor seen a redemptive lifestyle in operation under the Lordship of Christ. At the same time however what shocks me more is the intransigent nature of many who live a private “Christian” lifestyle given this backdrop. The old excuse that you don’t need to use words etc… that people will see Christ in you, can at times be an excuse for careless living without an intentional care for the brokenness and eternity of others and what they see and hear in our lives which is of critical and eternal importance to them. Eyes of grace sting with frequent tears for the mess of our world, and maybe that is why we are often tempted not to look at brokenness. Fixing our oyes on Christ does not mean that we ignore a broken world, it means that we trust his character, power and equipping to make us fruitful in it as he draws our focus towards the path of redemptive living where he has placed us, before we are with our redeemer forever and the opportunity is gone forever.
We are not called to ignore brokenness, even if it is for our emotional wellbeing, or because we are busy with church. This is not what we are redeemed for. Our world idolises emotional wellbeing and positive thinking, the bible does not and redemption in Christ is so much deeper than this veneer. We are called to intentionally engage with this worlds brokenness in Christ's name. The message of the N.T. gospels reveals the frontier mission of Christ to such. It is a glorious and undeserved thing He has included us in. Christ's mission is without boundary, and ours must be also. To write off people as "not our responsibility", to say that the hurting and broken sector of society around our church or new community location is "not our problem", or "not part of our calling or parish" is about as un Christlike as we can be.
Christs laser criticism reserved for the first century ghetto of religion was repelled by a reply of constant trope and spew of hate. (Luke 7:34). Even in this however, our Saviour's obedience took the hit and scorn, it did not deter him, either to redemptive relationship amongst those far away, (marginalised and "excluded") or was it a distraction to the purposes of God and the path to the cross and empty tomb. In reality these encounters where the path… they are our path as we follow Him… this is our calling before inevitable glorification. Victory in Christ is that we say "no" to marginalisation and segregation of redemption and "Yes" to His bigger purposes in our lives. We seek the lost and broken, the ill who need spiritual restoration and chief physician, the lonely who need the friend of sinners, the spiritually drowning who need a lifeline, the downhearted and downtrodden who need His power in the format of a friend, the neglected and crushed who need His faithfulness, the low and ashamed who need His restoration, the battered and ready to give up who need His new beginning. This is the glory of what we are called to in His purposes.
Lord give me eyes to see people through your eyes.
c) TRUST HIM FOR PARABOLIC FRUITFULNESS IN REDEMPTIVE LIVING:
THERE IS NO LIMIT TO WHAT HE CAN DO:
Lord Help me see what a person can be in your redemptive purposes.
- The gang leader has come to Christ in the township, trains for evangelism and shares the gospel non stop. The brokenness has not stopped, he and his family are in danger and the firing line (literally) but crime has fallen off a cliff since Christ came into his life, the ripples into 100's and 1000's of lives are ever increasing as the gospel spreads parabolically into hearts and homes once far away.
- The young girls who stared at walls and remained in the confines of their room, never going out due to the shame of their rape, now stand at the front of the class teaching a rammed room full of smiles. They are confident of their identity in Christ. They tell of Christ being the only answer to our greatest needs. A new generation grows under the radiance of forgiveness, with ambitions to change the world for the glory of their rescuer.
- The girls trafficked for prostitution, drive to the war zone to witness to their redemption story in Christ. They return with others who have been through mirrored trauma, trying to joke and laugh as they drive to safety, but the eyes which look back are empty and lifeless. When home, they tend for their unexpected guest on every level. They want to show love, commitment faithfulness and care in the name of the one who cares more than any. They wash clothes, dispose of items with bad memories, `shop for new ones, clean toilets, make beds until one day their house guest also bows the knee to Christ and the smile of joy floods to their sad faces once again. At this moment, the servant of Christ says, I would do it all again and many times more to see that smile of salvation.
- The boys told that they had no purposes, fix the cars. They do it not for themselves, or even for great profit, but to share a word in season about how the great mechanic has resolved the greatest issues of our lives. We are made for a purpose, and only in Christ does our life work as intended according to the makers instruction.
- The man who went to prison, and left seeking anonymity to a remote area because of the heinous nature of his crimes... now returns to his original village. He tells his story. The man who took and stole now sows and grows and here is the produce as a gift for you today. He tells of the one who gave him more than he could ever understand, a new start in His Son. A new position as a treasured person, a new openness to be shaped and nurtured, a new love for people which brings him to involuntary tears. From it comes a request to know this God, a request to learn more, a desire for him the redeemed man to pastor those who come to know this same God of new beginnings. Here the story continues. Our God loves new beginnings.
What is your next step in a life of redemption. Trust him to enlarge your heart, to renew your vision, to widen your friendship, to provide opportunity for new missional friendship. His heart is bigger, his arm is not short to save and his priority is lost people.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Lord of eternity,
Dwells in humanity,
Kneels in humility,
And washes our feet.
Wisdom unsearchable,
God the invisible,
Love indestructible,
In frailty appears.
Lord of infinity,
Stopping so tenderly,
Lifts our humanity to the heights of His throne.
Oh what a mystery
Meekness and majesty
Bow down and worship
For this is your God
This is your God.
