Season 1, Episode 4
When Jesus spoke about His Church, He was looking ahead to that body of people who would believe in Him, and belong to one another because they belonged to Him.
When Jesus said the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church, He was not painting a picture of fearful, threatened Christians desperately trying to resist the powers of evil. Gates are not offensive – they are defensive! Jesus was not talking about His Church being under threat. Rather, He was making the point that Hell’s gates – its defences – cannot withstand the power of His Church on the offensive! I relish that picture of God’s people crashing through the gates of Hell and setting the devil's captives free!
That is the Church for which Jesus laid down His life … and that is the Church the Holy Spirit brought into being on the Day of
Pentecost, just 50 days after Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Though thousands of people had heard Jesus preach over the previous 3½ years, with many benefitting from His miracles of healing and deliverance, He sure did not end up with a lot of followers. Only 120 were gathered together that day when the Holy Spirit was poured out. Yet from then on, that miraculous Spirit-filled, Spirit-led body had just one great purpose: to be the living expression of the Living God in this world!
Just as Jesus had been the physical embodiment of God in one man, so was this newly created body of His people. He had called them together, joined them together, and filled them with His Spirit for that very purpose.
What more could you wish for than to belong to such a unique God-created Body?
You may well wonder …when you look at what Jesus said to some aspiring followers:
“If any man would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”
Was that an invitation? Would anyone seriously looking for followers put it like that? Jesus did – because it was the truth. He knew all too well that for anyone to truly follow Him would cost them everything! Why? Because it not only cost Him everything, it also cost His Father everything … just to make the way for you to belong to Him.
God knows that a relationship with Him and the gift of eternal life which He alone can give, are costly beyond any price you could pay. So all He asks is that you abandon your life to receive His.
Now, that sure isn’t ‘church’ as most Christians know it. Nor does it describe Christianity as it is often presented. No wonder the devil – who Jesus referred to as ‘the prince of this world’ – has such a free hand!
God is often hindered in doing as He wants, because so few Christians have yielded their lives to Him. Yes, He does have people who want to ‘do great things for Him’ … even heroic things. People who want personal success in all sorts of ‘Christian Ministries’. Some build ‘mega-churches’ – others set up ministries, missions or programs. The forms and expressions are many and varied, but what really matters is what motivates them and who it is really about. Unless it is a true expression of God’s Spirit, anything that is done in His name is, at best, a man-made version of the real thing, which gratifies that egocentric person we each are without God.
That’s why Jesus made it clear that belonging to Him must mean denying yourself. You cannot live for Him and also for yourself – because one of those will always exclude the other.
Christians often bemoan how blatantly ‘me-centred’ our society has become, unlike earlier generations (like the one I grew up in) where displays of self-centredness were discouraged – even looked down on. What a contrast with the current emphasis on ‘being the best version of yourself’’ …not for the sake of others, but for you.
Even then, it’s far easier to complain about the state of the world than to live in it as one of God’s people – abandoned to Him with no other life, no other future, no other ambition and no other destiny, than what comes from following Him.
That’s true Christianity. That’s what it means to follow Jesus. That’s the price of being His disciple.
Many Christians know and love the Bible stories about those who abandoned their lives to God – living for Him alone and responding to Him in faith and obedience. They also love reading accounts of godly people who have lived since the days of Jesus – ‘Heroes of the Faith’ who have done great things for God. Missionaries, preachers, miracle-workers and martyrs. They idolise them, devour their biographies, and even become experts on them and their exploits. Yet, at the same time they regard those people as standout exceptions, rather than examples of normal people who simply lived their lives for God.
The term ‘saint’ – often used by older traditional churches as a special title of veneration – simply refers to someone who has set themselves apart for God. The apostle Paul used it in some of his letters – where he referred to ‘the saints’ in this place or that place. Every true follower of Jesus should, by definition, be a saint. Which is not to say that everyone who claims to be following Him is! Yet, they should be … because, in the most fundamental sense, belonging to Jesus means separating yourself to Him.
When praying for His disciples at the Last Supper, Jesus said to His Father: “…this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Eternal life is knowing God the Father and Jesus His Son, personally and intimately! It is God's gift to you and me, because of what He did in sending Jesus, and because of what Jesus did in laying down His life for us. There is no greater gift. It is worth letting go of everything you are, and everything you have …just to belong to Him.
So, eternal life is about much more than just life after death. It's about a living relationship with the Living God. Adam had it and lost it – and Jesus gave His life to get it back for you. It is ours to live in now, and it is the means by which we glorify God in this world.
Don’t even try to get your mind around it or try to figure out how God might be glorified in your life. If you make His life your life and truly want to glorify Him, you will. It’s simply a matter of living with Him on His terms.
This is thrilling, it's exciting … and it sure excites me! Yet, it is also very serious, because this is the real thing. You alone must decide whether you really want this life with God. Jesus emphasised the importance of counting the cost – warning about the folly of committing to follow Him, only to later abandon that commitment.
Having known God for most of my life, I find it hard for to understand why anyone would not want to go all the way with Him. Yet, history tells us that, of those who begin to follow Jesus, not many go the distance. I’m sure that some of those were never faced with the implications of following Him in the first place. But there are also others, like some in Jesus’ day, who happily followed Him until He said or did something they did not like or agree with, then turned their backs and walked away.
The most foolish thing to do when faced with the decision to surrender yourself to God and make your life all about Him, is to say ‘No!’ And the wisest thing you can ever do when faced with such a decision is to say ‘Yes, I'm in … whatever it costs!’