How abiding in Christ fits us for Ministry (Part Two)
Jay Wegter
In ourselves our case is desperate; but in abiding, faith looks out of self to Another. The Bible‟s description of the normal Christian experience is to be occupied with Christ so as to delight in Him. Yet, the experience of the average believer is often misery, self-loathing, a growing knowledge of sin and self; emptiness; helplessness; and stagnation. This only fits us more for Christ. When He is excluded from our thoughts we are left with darkness, disgust, sorrow, and affliction—sometimes He leaves us there to show us what we are in ourselves.
Our chief concern ought to be to cultivate communion with Him so as to apprehend Him as Source Person—proving His sufficiency to us. God is for us—He draws out our hearts to Christ. Communion with Him is our joy and strength.ⁱ Are we beginning to get the idea of why abiding in Christ fits us for ministry?
If this sounds too idealistic; let me stress that we‟re in this together. We have a common stake in locating where the blockage most commonly occurs in our walk. We need to locate the “CRIMP in the line;” the blockage; the bottleneck; the pinch point; the chokepoint that interrupts abiding and fruitfulness. It tends to come from an apathetic or complacent attitude about abiding in Christ. When we are not actively abiding in Christ; we tend to look briefly within—without Christ in the equation. Our areas of inadequacy; lukewarm-ness; and compromised personal holiness leave us with a mild or strong feeling of spiritual defeat.
We conclude that we are ineligible to speak the Word of God into the life of our brother or sister—so we disqualify ourselves. We settle into passivity and self-protection lest our efforts become an occasion to put our weakness and mediocrity on display.
It is precisely at this juncture that we need to aggressively return to abiding in Christ. Abiding is an exchange: His power for my weakness (Phil 4:13; 2 Cor 3:5). In Him are all of our resources (Gal 2:20; 2 Pet 1:3).
Abiding is a different kind of work than “Give me a board, nail and hammer—and buddy I can get it done.” Feeding on the gospel leads us to abide in Christ. A substantial part of our discipleship efforts will involve helping others deal with their areas of „blockage‟—what is interrupting their abiding and fruit-bearing? What is the cause of the blockage—their spiritual ‘embolism’? It was a Scotsman who said to the neutralized Christian, “There is a stone in the pipe.” The common blockage in our efforts to abide and be fruitful, centers upon dwelling upon our liabilities without reference to Christ. That is why we have a blockage in the first place: our chief error is contemplating ourselves AS IF we are not in union with a perfect Savior. One pastor wisely counseled: “For every one look you take at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.”
The new covenant in Christ‟s blood is intended to minister to our debilitating insecurities so that abiding in Christ need not be interrupted. For, we tend to be driven to self-justification by continual moral judgments of ourselves as well as chained to a treadmill of performance and achievement. As sinners aware of our moral failures, we possess innate insecurity and fear because of exposure to divine judgment (Jn 3:19-21; Heb 2:14-15). In our natural condition we deserve His disfavor—we could not supply the obedience needed to attain His acceptance and the reward of life (Rom 3:9-20). In His saving activity, God condescends to make a pact or „covenant‟ with believing sinners. In Christ, He graciously bestows what He requires—making believers beneficiaries of an unbreakable pact. Perfect status before God is conferred on the believing sinner irrespective of spiritual qualification. Through the new covenant, the believer enjoys communion with God and safety in God. “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and will remember their sins no more” (Heb 8:12; 8:13; Jer 31:33-34).
„Gospel saturation‟ feeds our faith so that we abide in Christ. By gospel saturation we mean that the believer is to be so controlled by gospel realities that his entire set of goals and incentives is transformed. Gospel saturation keeps driving our abiding in Christ because the gospel keeps displaying and exhibiting to the eyes of the heart His sufficiency as Source Person; His utter desirability; our life in Him; and our completeness in Him.
Our faith response is to CONSENT to be loved for no good reason in us—out of this gospel-based reception of love comes our desire to bear one another‟s burdens (Gal 6:2). Consenting to be loved supernaturally means that WHO God is toward me in Christ (my relationship with God as it is settled in Christ) begins to control me (2 Cor 5:14-15). It makes me deliberate and intentional in doing my part in fulfilling the Great Commission. Gospel saturation produces radical identification with Christ and His purposes (Phil 3:8-16).
The gospel gives us the „shape‟ of the Christian life. A clear grasp of the gospel guards against returning to a default mode of performance Christianity. Without gospel saturation, our obligations within Christianity can easily become a yoke or harness. When that becomes the situation, we tend to lack the total motivation to be a blessing to others. The solution always goes back to the necessity of abiding. The gospel displays to our religious affections Christ‟s desirability, sufficiency, and availability—that „fuels‟ our abiding in Him.
Here are the major gospel elements that give the proper „grace-life‟ shape of our Christian walk: we who are redeemed are now the Lord’s possession—and we are to diligently care for this relationship given at salvation. As the Lord’s possession, we are to joyfully give ourselves (offer ourselves) back to God each day. Because of union with Him; we are to regard Christ as our life—as our ‘Source Person’—out of this reality of Christ the ‘vine’ flows the reality of abiding in Him —the Christian walk is ‘shared life’ with Christ—living upon Another so that we are able to find our place of service in the body of Christ so that we may build together with the Lord in building the Body of Christ.
This is why we must be discipled in the gospel: without an enduring commitment to live by the gospel, we sentence ourselves to fruitless Christianity. It can normally take a full year and one half of discipleship in the gospel before a person begins to live upon Christ as a habit and life direction. Why does fruitless Christianity exist? John chapter 15 has the answer—it is due to a lack of abiding. In order for believers to abide as a lifestyle; there must by a continual „display‟ of Christ as He is exhibited to sinners in the gospel. Without the constant input of the gospel displaying Christ, abiding in Him suffers. Some writers refer to this as “the gospel gap,” or, “cultural Christianity.” In a word it is the phenomenon of believers who are NOT radically identified with Christ and therefore are not producing the expected fruit of faith—they are ineffective and unproductive Christians.ⁱⁱ
The „gospel gap‟ produces an infertile cultural Christianity. And, the cause may be traced to believers having a very weak grasp of the present benefit of the work of Christ; the power of the cross; and the transforming reality of future hope.
William Wilberforce addressed this problem more than 200 years ago in his book, Real Christianity. Wilberforce argues that in the West we have settled for a cultural version of Christianity that is far from the real thingⁱⁱⁱ—it is unmoved by spiritual realities and the precious things of God. By contrast, biblical Christianity is characterized by adherents who have spiritual eyes to behold the infinite riches of Christ; therefore they regard heavenly treasure as their primary pursuit in this life (Col 3:1-4).
The power of Christ‟s love received has an effect upon our lives of enabling us to bear fruit for the glory of God. We must not be content to think of the love of Christ in a general way. Instead, we must dwell upon God‟s wisdom, goodness, and grace shown in eternal acts of His divine nature and pity—all given to us in Christ. The church cannot maintain its fervency apart from abiding in Christ.
When He comes and shows Himself amidst our abiding in Him (communion/meditation); He brings with Him peace, comfort, joy, and assurance. Christ‟s intent is that we ‘feast’ with Him by means of these spiritual refreshments (Rev 3:20). Christ was making overtures to the church at Laodicea to fellowship with Him at the points of their spiritual poverty (their condition as seen by Christ was: spiritually blind, naked, lukewarm, wretched, and miserable—Revelation 3:16-18. The amazing thing is that these faults were not a bar to fellowship with Him; but constituted needs that could only be answered by fellowship with Him—Revelation 3:19-20).
How are we to receive these things? John Owen counsels: look on the glory of Christ by faith. Meditate on the glory of His unique nature—His humbling of Himself to come into the world—His present high position in heaven—His love and grace. Your hearts will be spiritually affected in some degree by His constraining love—which is the source of all our spiritual comforts and power.ⁱᵛ Christ has promised heart-warming disclosures of Himself if we will pursue Him through His Word and desire to have our lives ordered by His Word (Jn 14:21-23).
The church cannot maintain its fervency apart from abiding in Christ. Without the experience of the spiritual comforts Christ brings when we abide, our Christianity is heartless, lifeless, and useless. Without a steady diet of Christ as He is displayed to the saints in the gospel; the church cannot fulfill her mission. This revelation of Christ in the gospel is the source of our ongoing transformation (our „gospel formation‟ into the image of the Son).
Again John Owen is awesome in addressing this topic: where is the proof of our faith if we do not experience the enjoyment of these spiritual blessings here and now? (Rom 15:13; 1 Pet 1: 3-9). We must take a steady view of Christ‟s glory—and seek Him with all our heart. In this way alone will the believers who collectively make up the church recover from stagnancy. Christ‟s glory alone will bring us back to joy—to love in our hearts; in our souls; and in our relationships.ᵛ We are to frequently contemplate what Christ has done for us to cause our relationship with God to be forever settled.ᵛⁱ
Lasting, sanctifying change is never produced by bare behavior modification—it is always a result of the gospel. All advances in real holiness start with Christ and the gospel. The church today is afflicted with the lie that we can change without the gospel. Gospel saturation reverses that misnomer. And we might add that to truly become saturated with the gospel, it normally requires discipleship relationships which are focused upon the Word of grace.ᵛⁱⁱ
When we are saturated with the gospel we are in the best position to commune with Christ and with one another. „Gospel saturation‟ is to continually feed on the Word of His grace (Acts 20:32)—always affirming the great exchange which took place in Christ taking our place so that we might enjoy shared life with Him now and forever.ᵛⁱⁱⁱ
God‟s grace is so much more than merely His remedy for sin. Grace is God‟s commitment to complete the process which He began in each of His children. Our progress in grace means connecting our desires to God‟s purposes. This process stays on schedule (or on track) the best when we have a discipler who functions as a life coach. We make forward progress as we continue to release our personal agendas in order to be controlled by what God wants. Our discipler helps us with this process.ⁱˣ Your discipler, by ongoing spiritual „parenting‟, is in the best position to help uncover and get you past blockage.
Lasting change must be rooted in the cross of Christ and in His promises to conform us to His image.ˣ The gospel drives our fellowship with the Lord and our service and sanctification. The reason why is because the gospel keeps displaying Christ in His fullness—all He is toward us, and all we are in Him. The gospel draws us back to intimate fellowship with Christ. As we abide in Him, our progress in sanctification will actually show up in our opportunities to minister to others. This is great news—for Christ tells us that fruit-bearing is a function of His words abiding in us and us abiding in Him (Jn 15:4-5.)ˣⁱ As we grow in Christ through abiding in Him, the Lord will place more opportunities for ministry in our path, and as a result of abiding, we will find ourselves taking more of these opportunities.
Our relationship with God is manifested in our relationships with others (1 Jn 4:7-13; 19-21). As John Piper says, “It is my greatest joy to experience the in-filling grace of God overflowing from me for the good of others.” This is „reflexive love‟—which overflows from our satisfaction in Christ (1 Jn 4:19). The habitual consciousness of who God is toward us in Christ in all His mercy and love is a major part of our equipping to love the brethren (Col 3:12-13). The gospel of grace provides the rationale for us to love sacrificially; to be spent on behalf of the brethren; to live for the edification of others. The word of grace gives us the reasons why we are to identify ourselves completely with Christ‟s purposes: The believer is a member of Christ‟s Body; as such each member is to contribute his part to the maturation of the Body of Christ as a whole. Abiding in Christ causes me to make the effort to find my place in the Body of Christ (Eph 4:15, 16; Col 2:19).
Our love for God can never be reduced to the abstract or theoretical. The apostle John argues that genuine love for God (as a result of receiving His love (1 Jn 4:7-11, 20), demands an expression from us toward our brethren. Fruitfulness through abiding in Christ is what happens when we translate God’s vertical love to us into horizontal love to the brethren. Nothing should be more natural for a believer than to pursue friendships within the body of Christ for the purpose of doing spiritual good to others.
Each member of Christ‟s Body is to commit himself or herself to the Great Commission which is not only directed at evangelism, but equally at discipleshipˣⁱⁱ. “And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man that we present every man complete in Christ” (Col 1:28). The mindset is, “The Lord placed me in the Body so I can be here for others—to do spiritual good to them.”
Such radical identification with Christ and His purposes requires that our affections be captive to the grace of God in the gospel. When we preach the gospel to ourselves daily, it keeps reminding us of the holy character of God, of the loving heart of God toward us in Christ, of who we are in ourselves as sinners, and of who we are in Christ. The beauty of reckoning our union with Christ is a growing recognition of His Person (Phil 3:10ff.). With that growing realization of Christ, comes our willingness to be radically identified with Him. In other words, as we know Christ better, our desire is to live out His purpose for us.
The church as the body of Christ on earth is a supernatural community— „supernatural‟ because all true believers are in union with Christ and with one another by means of God‟s Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:13). Our relationships are intended by Christ to go far beyond anything nature is capable of. Consider the „supernatural‟ character of the following commands—each of these commands is beyond our natural strength: love one another as I have loved you; consider the interests of others as more important than your own; bear one another’s burdens; be filled with compassion and gentleness and be continually forgiving one another; defer to one another; build with Christ in building up one another; relate in such a way that it shows that you are members one of another. Our relationships within the body of Christ are to incarnate the virtues and character of Christ in such a way that, as Jesus said in His High Priestly prayer in John 17:21, the world might believe that the Father sent Me.
Living out our supernatural connection to Christ and to one another is the church living as an „organism‟ animated by Christ (Eph 4:14-16). Each member of the body is to always be translating the vertical his relationship with Christ into the horizontal—into his relationship with the brethren. We do this translating of the vertical into the horizontal through abiding and by its effect: discipleship. We abide so as to build with Christ.
Paul‟s focus in fulfilling the Great Commission reminds us that every bit of this discipleship mandate is utterly intentional. In other words, it‟s a mandate to bring each believer to spiritual maturity (Col 1:28-29). Our relationships exist for the purpose of growing up into Christ. Genuine fellowship exists for the purpose of doing spiritual good to another that the body might grow up into Christ its Head. “But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Eph 4:15-16).
One of the major impediments to discipleship is apathy and self-protection. We fear being known; having our sins discovered, or our spiritual immaturity uncovered—and/or, we have some apprehension that a discipleship relationship will turn the screws of high accountability and wind up being a „black hole‟ drawing us into an unending commitment— eating up too much of our discretionary time. I want to lay those misconceptions to rest. The majority of discipleship takes place in a context of the informal within caring relationships.
Biblical discipleship can be as simple as determining to prayerfully speak God‟s Word in our relationships. Much discipleship will be informal and spontaneous. We can be proactive—determining that we will not allow our conversations to remain in the realm of the mundane. As soon as you approach conversation with edification in mind; you are in a position to provide discipleship input. To be on task in discipleship is to purposefully steer the conversation in the direction of redemptive language. Let me define that for you. Redemptive conversation involves initiating comments and questions which draw out Scripture truths and principles and apply them to life. Redemptive questions and comments can be as simple as: How’s your walk with the Lord? Where are you getting beat up this week? Is there a ministry opportunity you are thinking about taking? How can I pray for you? I’ve got to share with you what God has been teaching me. Here is what I have been going through at work as far as my testimony. I sure could use your prayers; I am going through a time of trial.
The implementation of discipleship is inseparable from the effects produced by the gospel itself—learning to live upon Christ (and receiving His love and favor) issues forth in laying down one‟s life for the brethren. Assisting others in their spiritual growth is the very essence of discipleship (Col 1:28-29). The scriptural answer to the gospel gap and cultural Christianity is abiding in Christ so that we follow Him by intentional discipleship. We are members one of another—and Christ has called us to live as such (Eph 4:25). The church of Christ is like no other organization—it is animated by its Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Its members have life in common in Christ and are organically joined to Him. The members of His body are members one of another and are indwelt and empowered by His Spirit.
The way we are to do true community is by discipleship. The gospel gives us all the reasons and the power for true community—for self-forgetfulness in the care and discipleship of others. The gospel alone gives us the reason and the desire to love sacrificially. Only in the gospel in which Christ is proclaimed will we be made whole so that we can risk mutual admonishment, interdependence, accountability, and sacrificial love and commitment. The gospel demands and enables us to incarnate Christ in our relationships.
CONCLUSION: By the grace of God we must make an effort to move our conversations with one another past the mundane and into the kinds of gospel conversations enjoined in the Word (Col 3:16; Eph 5:19-20.
Consider for a moment what I call the “Toe in the Jordan principle”—this is the great paradox that we strive according to His power (Col 1:29). When we step out in faith and obedience to God, we marvel that His power accompanies our efforts to be a blessing to others. When the priests were carrying the Ark of the Covenant in preparation for the conquest of Jericho, there was no indication that the flooded Jordan River would part to permit their crossing. In faith they stepped out and the raging river parted when their toes touched the waters (Josh 3:14-17). The question is: what would you attempt for God if you truly believed that the power and resources would be there at the moment they were needed?
I find in my own walk with the Lord I need to frequently pray something like this which captures the spirit of abiding. “Lord, by abiding in You, show me how to exchange my self-centeredness for your love; my self-protection for your bold servant leadership; my self-consciousness for your determination to bless; my fear and passivity for your initiative in ministry; my self-reliance for your dependency on the Father. Lord, show me what I ought to attempt for you and convince my weak faith of how you promise to accompany my effort with His power.”
Endnotes:
i A. W. Pink, Experimental Union with Christ, pp. 2-36
ii Timothy Lane, Paul Tripp, How People Change, pp. 3-4, 6-8)
iii William Wilberforce, Real Christianity, Regal, 2006, pp. 24, 42-43, 53, 68
iv John Owen, The Glory of Christ
v Ibid.
vi John Piper, Desiring God
vii Timothy Lane, Paul Tripp, How People Change, pp. 26-29, 35, 234
viii Ibid., p. 66
ix Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Hand of the Redeemer, P & R, 2002, pp. 41, 43, 49
x Lane/Tripp, How People Change, p. 193
xi Ibid., p. 254
xii Colin Marshall, “Discipleship Workshop,” based on his book, The Trellis and the Vine