10/5/08 How Did Those Guys Do It?
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What we are going to do during the next few minutes

is intended to be a critically timed one week refresher course

in a truth we so often find it so hard to remember.

It is one we have looked at in the past,

but one that, given so much of what we’ve been looking at during the past few months,

we absolutely must keep clearly built into our thinking.

For the past few months

we’ve been talking a great deal about changes our Lord seeks to bring about in our lives.

It’s true we’ve talked about these changes

in the context of them being projects He shares with us

so that we can get to know Him better.

But even in that context

if we do not understand the basic arrangement our Lord has made with us through Christ

it is all too easy for us to find ourselves weighted down

with a massive load of duties and obligations that we believe we must fulfill for our God.

Hopefully what we look at this morning

will help break the destructive power of that lie.

During the next few minutes we are going to look at a truth

that, if we could ever really hear what’s being said to us by our God,

will profoundly alter the way in which we live our lives each day.

Perhaps the best way for me to introduce you to where I want us to go

is through a statement made by Paul in Galatians 2:20.

In that verse he says, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.”

Now, I know that typically what we do with that statement

is to view it as something that is reserved

for those few believers throughout history

who have reached a level of spiritual maturity

in which the life of Christ truly pours through them.

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me...”

Have you ever honestly considered the possibility

of using that phrase to describe yourself?

Or would you be more inclined to say of yourself,

“Well actually, it’s mostly I who live, rather than Christ living through me.

Now, I do recall that time back in 1999

when I got into that conversation with that person

and afterwards came away feeling as though, just maybe,

God really was saying something through me to them.

But most of the time, I’m afraid it’s mostly just me doing the living,

and honestly, I’m probably not doing that very well.”

Well, if those thoughts are even a little bit close to what you’ve felt sometimes,

I do hope you’ll be able to hear what I’m going to share with you during the next few minutes.

There is something within every growing Christian

that longs for productivity.

It’s just part of what our God does in us through His Spirit.

We do want our lives to matter.

We want our being here to make a difference.

Whether we have worked through all the doctrinal ideas behind it or not,

in our spirits we know

that we really are literally a part of the body of Jesus Christ here on this earth,

the means by which He does what He does in the lives of others.

And we find within our spirits

a longing to do that well.

But there is a problem.

When we come to Christ,

we bring with us our natural religious mentality

that has trained us to think in terms of our trying to work for God,

and we have no idea what it means for Christ to literally work in and through us.

And then, along with this,

we have a whole lifetime of training

that tells us that all productivity in life

is the result of human effort,

and talents,

and self-discipline,

and the investments of our time and energy.

We go to school

and we learn very quickly

that the grade we get on the paper

is directly tied to how much time and skill and intelligence we invest in it.

We get a job

and we know that we will succeed or fail at that job

in direct proportion to our ability to perform the work well.

It is the way life works.

It’s the way things are.

And, of course the same principles must apply in our walk with the King.

We will succeed or fail at this Christian thing

to the degree we can successfully do for God what needs to be done.

So what do we do?

We carefully watch those around us

that we believe to be successes at Christian living

and we attempt to imitate their lives.

I discovered early in my Christian life

that I could tell what church background a person was from

by the way they prayed publicly.

My Baptist friends had their own distinct way of praying,

my charismatic friends had a completely different style of prayer,

most of my Presbyterian friends chose not to pray out loud at all,

and so on.

Why was that?

Does the Spirit of God work differently through different denominations?

Of course not.

It’s because we have all learned our style of public prayer

by listening to and then imitating those in leadership in whatever group we happen to have been nurtured in.

Of course there is nothing wrong with adopting external speaking styles of those we respect,

but the real problem comes in that

when we attempt to model our walk with Christ

on the basis of what we see in the lives of others,

all we end up doing is attempting to equip the flesh to do the work of God.

We find our target role model -

a pastor, a teacher, a mentor,

or maybe some Christian giant from the past

that we have met through a biography.

Then we use them to help us refine our blue-print of the truly “great” Christian.

“A great Christian will...”,

and then we fill in the blanks.

Then we summon our self-discipline,

and our talents,

and our determination,

and our personality traits to pull it off.

And with most of us,

if we are honest,

we find that these flesh-based efforts follow a 3 step process.

Step one: we find ourselves thinking this is easy.

Step two: we find ourselves thinking, this is tough.

And step three: we reach the point where we realize this is impossible!

Now let me read for us Christ’s alternative

to this technique of attempting to imitate others through equipping the flesh.

It’s recorded for us in John 15:4-5.

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

He doesn’t ask us to imitate the other branches,

and He doesn’t even ask us to imitate the vine!

What He asks is that we abide in Him,

just as a branch abides in the vine,

and then allow the life of the vine to flow out through us.

And then He closes with this incredibly powerful statement,

“...for apart from Me you can do nothing!”

OK, so what’s He talking about,

and just exactly how did those guys in the New Testament do what they did?

In Acts 3:1-10 we have recorded for us

one of the most significant events ever to take place

in the life of the early church.

It’s worth our taking the time to read it together.

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. And a man who had been lame from his mother's womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. But Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on him and said, "Look at us!" And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene -- walk!" And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. With a leap he stood upright and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God; and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

The significance of this event

can only be fully appreciated

when we understand when it took place.

This is the first public healing to take place by the disciples following the departure of Christ.

In a powerful, dramatic way

for the first time in history

this event inseparably linked these men to the miraculous life of Christ Himself,

publicly demonstrating that there was an unbroken line between Christ

and these men who now called Him Lord and stood in His place on this earth.

How did Peter and John know what street to take,

and when to leave,

and where to be at exactly the right time

in order to encounter this man and be able to perform this great work?

In Acts chapters 13-14

we have Paul’s 1^st missionary journey recorded for us.

How did he know where to go,

and how long to stay,

and what to do and to say when he got where he was going?

And how can we know where and when and how and why God wants us to be

wherever it is that He wants us to be?

The answers we need

are given to us by Paul in his letter to the Colossian Christians.

These Colossian Christians

were a highly motivated group of believers.

We know from Paul’s comments to them

that they longed to be productive

and to build a solid foundation in their walk with Christ.

But they, like us, were ignorant about how this whole thing worked.

And so Paul writes them this remarkable letter.

He begins as he so often begins his letters

by praying for the goal that he then hopes his letter will achieve in the lives of his readers.

In Colossians 1:9-11 he says,

“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might...”

“...that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will...” Amen!

Then he goes on to reveal the simple, yet revolutionary concept

upon which our entire walk with Christ is based.

But to understand what he says

I need to walk us quickly through the first part of this short letter.

In 1:9-12 Paul prays the goal.

But then, in 1:13-22,

he suddenly seems to launch out into a totally different direction.

He starts talking about the Person of Jesus Christ...

13] For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. [15] And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. [16] For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created by Him and for Him. [17] And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. [18] He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything. [19] For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, [20] and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. [21] And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, [22] yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach--

Now, it’s great knowledge about our Lord, of course,

but what does that have to do with our knowing and doing the will of God?

Then , in 1:23-26

Paul takes a few verses to assure his readers

that what He is sharing is by the commission and authority of God Himself.

Then, in 1:27 Paul finally reveals the will of God,

and at the same time explains why he began by first talking with us

about the Person and work of Jesus Christ.

He says,

“...God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

HUH?

What does Christ in me have to do

with my knowing and doing the will of God?

You see, to our deeply religious minds,

the will of God is some task,

or assignment,

or duty,

or obligation,

or ministry given to us by God.

It is something we DO,

and we see the will of God

as our fulfilling some action or series of actions given to us by Him.

And right there is where we get it all wrong,

because God’s will is not some external action or series of actions.

Rather, it is a carefully designed relationship between Christ and the believer,

a relationship in which Christ lives out His life through the believer

and the believer rests in the assurance

that Christ is doing just exactly that.

And the reason for Paul’s extended description of Christ

is that He wants to be sure we understand

just exactly who is living in and through us!

And in response to that information

we say to ourselves, “Great! So Christ wants to live through me.

I know that already.

So how can I let Him do it?”

And right there is where we get it wrong.

You see, Paul did not tell us that we should TRY to let Christ live in us and through us,

he told us that Christ is already doing it!

And this truth right here

is the great divide

between the lives we see recorded for us in the New Testament

and the lives of Christians today.

We see Christ living through us as a specialized, relatively rare event in our lives.

They understood Christ in them as a fact of life.

Remember Peter and John in Acts 3

when they were used by God

to bring about that miraculous healing?

Did they begin that day with some divine revelation

showing them which road to take,

what time to leave,

and what work to perform in that lame man’s life?

No!

They were simply going about their daily routine,

resting in the knowledge that their God was living in them,

trusting that He would do that day

exactly what He had promised to do every day -

live His life out through them

in just the way that was right for all concerned.

And Paul, with those missionary journeys of his,

how did he know where to go,

what to do?

He used his mind,

his choices,

knowing that his God was living out through him.

There were some times, of course,

when God did step into believers’ lives

to point them a direction they would not otherwise have gone.

We see this happening in Peter’s life in Acts chapter 10

when the full weight of his past religious training

made it impossible for him to recognize or anticipate a work that God wanted to do through him.

In that situation,

once again at a pivotal point in God’s revelation of Himself to the world,

when He wanted to take the offer of Christ out of the closed Jewish world

and fling it open to every human being,

there was no way Peter could have anticipated such a work.

Christ came as a Jew,

in fulfillment of prophecies made by God exclusively to the Jews,

offering Himself as the Messiah promised to the Jewish Nation.

How could Peter have known what God intended to do?

And so we have God preparing Peter

for the pouring out of the Spirit of God on the Gentiles

through a series of visions.

And when God wanted to point Paul

into a radically new direction in Acts 16,

a direction Paul would never have anticipated on his own,

once again God intervened with a communication that pointed Paul out of Asia Minor

and into Europe.

But even then it is clear that Paul recognized this vision for what it was -

not a new approach to discerning the life and leadership of God,

but rather a necessary exception to the basic rule

of resting in the reality of Christ’s life being lived out through Him.

In Paul’s vision he saw a Macedonian man calling to him

to come over to Macedonia and help them.

But once Paul got there

he didn’t run around the countryside looking for the man in his vision,

he shared the gospel with the first person who was responsive to him,

a WOMAN, Lydia,

who then provided him with the foundation for his entire work in that region.

And as far as we know,

he never found,

and never even looked for the man in his vision.

So here’s the basic rule.

As God’s people,

we are called to simply trust by faith

that our Lord is indeed doing what He promised He would do,

living in us and working through us.

Gal 2:20, ‟I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.”

So how does this play out in our daily lives?

How do we approach our life with our Lord

in a way that truly reflects the reality of His life in us

and allows us to rest daily in that truth?

Well, I’ll tell you the two things that have helped me the most.

First, I had to consciously get rid of the religious box in my mind,

that mental box of the things I thought would fit under the heading of “the work of God”.

With most of us

that box includes church type things -

going to church,

being involved in church,

maybe “witnessing” to others

or bringing them to church.

And of course, with me,

being a Bible Teacher,

employed by a local church,

there were a whole lot other things in my box,

things that I just knew preachers were suppose to do,

and things that I also knew didn’t fit at all

with what “real” preachers did.

That box, of course,

is exactly what Peter was facing

when he couldn’t understand the life of Christ through him

in Acts chapter 10.

There were no Gentiles in his box.

And what God had to do with Peter

was the same thing He seeks to do with all of us -

blast our boxes apart.

Simply stated,

there are no boxes.

There are no lines between sacred and secular.

There are no divisions between God’s work and man’s work.

There is simply, only, life with God,

and His commitment to live through us in all of life

in the way that is exactly right.

My life as your pastor

is so different than anything I ever even remotely thought it would be in years past.

And it is so perfectly matched

both to what God has equipped me to do,

and to what He has not equipped me to do.

It doesn’t look anything like the life

of any other pastor I’ve ever known,

because I’m not like any other pastor I’ve ever known.

But the heart of the battle for many years

was having the courage to destroy the box, one piece at a time,

and replace it with daily life with my Lord.

And the second thing that has helped

is knowing the truth

and then continually reminding myself of that truth.

I no longer look for “the will of God”

or “the leadership of God” in my life.

I accept them as inescapable facts of His living in me.

And as much as I am able to,

I now begin each day by saying simply,

“Lord, thank you for your life lived through me again this day.

Please give me eyes to see those choices

that would war against that life.”

In other words,

I actively seek to rest in my God’s commitment to me

that He can and is living through me.

Now WAIT!

There is a problem with this whole thing, isn’t there?

I know everything I do is not the result of Christ living through me.

True,

and that is why Paul uses the rest of this letter to the Colossians

to cover the two forces that have the power to block the life of Christ through us:

In 2:8-23 He prepares us for the power of Religion,

and in chapters 3 and 4 he talks with us

about the destructive power of living outside of God’s protective moral framework.

But the basic principle is crucial:

if we are living within God’s moral framework,

and if we are not mired in manmade religion,

we can rest in the absolute certainty

that we are exactly where God wants us to be,

doing exactly what God wants us to do.

We are living in the center of the will of God!